The Free Company
by AntereiTheFounder
Summary: [Utawarerumono] Original story set a year after the end of the anime using original and series characters.  Touka and Karura receive a cryptic message urging them to hurry back to Tusukuru, and encounter an odd group of people who have been expecting them
1. Chapter 1: Auspicious Meetings

Chapter One: Auspicious Meetings

"Was that really necessary?"

"Of course it was," came the reply, followed by a tremendous yawn. Touka glanced over at the source, annoyed. For someone who had just beaten a gang of a dozen village toughs senseless, the woman known as Karura looked more like she was settling down to enjoy a leisurely afternoon nap. Her unconcerned expression, drooping eyelids, lazily twitching tail, and being sprawled out under the shade of a nearby tree along the roadside didn't help much.

Touka let out a clearly exasperated sigh, something like that a mother would make after a day of looking after a particularly restless and bothersome child. In the past year since their decision to wander the land as ankuams, Karura's carefree nature and love of drinking had gotten the two into more than enough trouble, and yet the Evinkuruga woman was never quite able to get used to it. Indeed, at times Touka wondered how it was she had been through her share of danger and still managed to be stressed out by the relatively safe situations instigated by her traveling companion. Still, she couldn't really think of that many other people she would travel and fight with.

Perhaps Benawi, although she supposed he was busy enough supervising the day to day activities of Tusukuru in Oboro's absence. She smiled inwardly at the thought of the diligent commander turned regent of Tusukuru doing anything but taking care of the dizzying array of issues that came up every day. By extension, Kurou was as busy as his superior. Last she had heard, he was filling in for Benawi in the role of Tusukuru's military commander. He definitely had the presence and experience necessary, but she wondered if his sometimes brash nature would get in the way. Then again, Benawi was likely keeping a close eye on him and giving him advice as needed.

Thinking of the present situation, Touka furrowed her brow. It had already been a week since they had received a message from Tusukuru, requesting both her and Karura come back to the palace at once. The two of them had been resting outside of a small inn along a less-traveled road when a woptuar-riding man wearing an odd dust-colored cloak rode up to them. He hurriedly dismounted and gave them a sealed scroll, saying only that the message came from Benawi personally before getting back on his mount and riding away just as suddenly. The message was equally brief and cryptic, mentioning a vague threat to the safety of Tusukuru and that it was important for the two of them to return as quickly as possible. Having just finished a simple job escorting a merchant's caravan from one town to another, they were able to quickly head back in the direction of the friends they had left behind.

Two years. Had it really been such a short time since Hakuoro had disappeared? Her entire life had been turned on end when she had come across him during Orikakan's misguided pursuit of him, and just as quickly when Hakuoro had revealed himself as the incarnation of half of Witsarnemitea only to be made whole and sealed. Immediately afterwards, Oboro, Benawi and Kurou had managed to assume their duties and somehow prevented the entire nation of Tusukuru from plunging into chaos. Meanwhile, Karura and she were for the most part left to their own devices. For a few months, they were needed to supplement Tusukuru's armed forces in repelling border skirmishes and exploratory raids made by some of the other nations hoping to exploit Hakuoro's sudden departure. After the situation calmed down, however, they were left with little to do. The remaining months of the year passed slowly, almost painfully so. Touka suspected that if Karura hadn't asked her to join her in her travels as an ankuam at the beginning of that second year, she would have likely made a similar decision herself. Maybe as a wandering warrior, or a role less crude than a blade for hire, although she had to admit she would not likely be as well fed. She smiled inwardly at herself. For an Evinkuruga clanswoman like herself to be considering the situation from that angle, Karura's attitudes must have rubbed off on her more than she had thought they would.

Going back to Tusukuru would be strange, but altogether comforting. Comforting in the sense that it would be like returning to a familiar home, but foreign in that there would be an empty space around its otherwise unchanged hearth. Touka consoled herself that whatever strangeness she felt would most definitely be outweighed by seeing old friends again. After all, there were three young sisters to see once more, and the idea of seeing how much Eruruu, Aruruu, and Kamyu had grown cheered her up greatly. Seeing Urutori again would be calming as well. Blushing slightly, she also mentally included Gachatara, Aruruu's pet Mikyuun.

Karura looked over at her traveling companion with a bemused look. "Hmm, now what could you be thinking of to make you blush? A past love affair maybe?" She leaned over slightly with a smirk on her face.

"Absolutely not," Touka said irritably, unconsciously straightening up in her seat against the tree. "I'm still amazed at kind of things you actually manage to say."

"What could it be then," Karura said with a mock sigh of weariness. "What else could make our prim and proper Touka color like a young maiden being asked to dance with the one she admires? Ah! Could it be the thought of small, cute animals?" Karura looked at Touka, her expression bright and mischievous, eyebrows lifted up in expectation. Touka didn't answer, her only response to look down at the ground as she blushed a brighter shade of red.

"Oh my, it seems I was right!" Karura narrowed her eyes as she beamed a smile at her and flicked her ears happily.

"Now there indeed is a rare sight, an Evinkuruga blushing. There's something that usually doesn't make it into the stories and songs," a man's voice chimed in. The pair quickly snapped their eyes up, fixing their gazes upon a fairly tall man standing across the road from them. His manner of dress was bizarre, to say the least, as he was wearing what appeared to be a loose long-sleeved tunic, gloves, pants secured with leg wrappings, rough-looking boots, and a loose scarf all in a very odd mixture of colors. The dominant color would seem to be beige, but it was interrupted everywhere by a riot of green, brown, and tan splotches of various intensities and sizes that were seemingly thrown about at random. Overall, the effect was unsettling on the eyes and made it difficult to pick out the man's outline against the rest of the terrain with any certainty. He was also wearing what looked like some kind of harness that went over both his shoulders and was connected to his belt, and had pouches of various dimensions hanging off of it. Touka noted the sheathed long knife that hung below his right shoulder, and what looked like a short sword hanging from his left hip.

Once past the initial shock of seeing his strange clothing, his physical appearance proved distinctive as well. His hair was a color close to that of riverbank sand, a very light shade somewhere in between tan and brown, and his eyes were similarly a strange gray-green color. His ears as well were very uncommon, being more forward-oriented than most and gray in color, and lighter on the inside. From what they could tell, his body was built more on the lithe side, and he appeared comfortably poised even as he leaned back against a large tree trunk with his arms folded over his chest.

Touka's hand darted to her sheathed sword as she dropped into a slight crouch, and Karura stood up propping her own weapon against the ground with one hand. "What's the meaning of this? I can assure you that if you're going to try and waylay us you'll be in for a rather hard fight," she intoned gravely, looking at the man with a hard gaze. He stood up from his resting spot against the tree, and lowered his head slightly as he placed the fingers of his right hand against his forehead. "Ancestors guide and preserve us if there were ever a reason to have cause for quarrel between us, daughter of Evinkuruga. I would ask you forgive any impropriety on my part for appearing before you unannounced," he said, bowing to her. She inhaled sharply as she pulled her hand away from her sword and placed it against her collarbone near her left shoulder, tilting her head forward in the process much like the man.

"Of course! I ask for your patience as well for presenting myself so hostilely, I did not recognize you or see any of the signs, son of Anterei," she said apologetically. The man smiled back faintly, as he raised his head up and dropped his hand, Touka following suit. "Again, I'm sorry for startling you. I would wear the signs, but I'm afraid my task right now prevents me from doing that," he said, crossing the road over to the pair of travelers.

"Please, sit, sit," he said, gesturing at the ground. He waited politely until Touka and Karura had sat down before sitting down across from the two. "I should probably explain what that was all about, Lady..." he began, looking at Karura.

"Karura," she replied. "You are from Clan Anterei, a scout if I'm not mistaken?" The man raised his eyebrows. "I see our reputation precedes us. Yes, that is correct. If you'll excuse me being somewhat forward, I would venture a guess that you belong to the line of Giriyagina. That would make you Karurauatsuurei then, yes?"

It was Karura's turn to be surprised. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if an Anterei scout would know that, but I'm still curious how you knew that," she said looking at the man a bit more carefully.

"To be blunt, your appearance," he said with a grin. "As far as I was taught, the only ones to possess that particular hair and eye color, along with those particular ears and tail were the Giriyagina."

"Hmm, how very perceptive of you. Still, you must have been posted out in the wilderness for some time, admitting to looking at a lady's tail as casually as that," she said in a teasing tone of voice. "Karura, what are you saying," Touka hissed at her, obviously embarrassed at her companion. The man simply leaned back and laughed. "I was named Touka, after one my clan's ancestors," she hurriedly added, trying to smooth over her friend's remark. The man nodded to her in response before continuing.

"Truly, I'm sorry if that came off as being crude, although I would imagine I would've have been suffering from a slap to the face at this point if that were so," he said with a smile. "But, I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is First Sergeant Jaren Strasert, from Clan Anterei's First Division. Being a Giriyagina, you've been privy to knowledge of our existence for some time now, I imagine," he said, looking to Karura, who nodded. "More specifically, I serve as part of Captain Treyar Kern's Free Company, which you may have heard some wild stories about carelessly told in taverns and such," he said.

Touka looked up at the tree branches above her, thinking. She had heard of the famous First Division of Clan Anterei, having learned the shared history between her people and theirs, but she wasn't too knowledgeable regarding this Free Company he mentioned. Thinking back, she could've sworn she had heard the name at least once or twice, but couldn't place exactly where. Most likely she had overheard the name from guards swapping exaggerated tales of fighting and adventure around a campfire or barracks in Tusukuru, or maybe even earlier when she was still fighting for Kuccha Keccha.

Karura nodded. "Quite often, actually. I have heard many accounts, but they all say that the Free Company was almost entirely responsible for breaking the grip of a bandit group called the Black Talon over several regions last autumn. They all disagree on the size of the group in question, of course. The first time I heard the story it was fifty bandits, and every time I heard it told again the number had jumped. They never mentioned anything about Clan Anterei or the First Division, of course," she added as an afterthought.

"I'd certainly hope so. In any case, it sounds like you have the basic idea. We're a very specific offshoot if you will, of Clan Anterei's military forces. We handle the more... unusual missions, I guess you could say. The Black Talon situation was something that we had to handle as quickly as we could, seeing as how we had received requests from the leaders of several regions that we have agreements with to assist them in return for being able to settle on their lands. They were well-organized and well-armed for bandits, but at the end of the day nothing still a bunch of rabble."

"Enough bragging from me, I should get down to why I'm here. The reason why I'm here as part of Clan Anterei through my service in the Free Company is to answer a request for aid from Regent Benawi, of Tusukuru. It's the same reason you should have received a message from a rider recently," Jaren said.

"We did, although it didn't give much in the way of details," Touka said, producing the letter from a pocket in her coat, and handing it to him. Jaren quickly read it over and returned it. "Yes, that's a matter of necessity. The decision was made to leave it vague to minimize the risk of any potentially vital information to be intercepted, however small that possibility might have been. Our couriers are the best, but even then, there is always the chance they could be captured, or even merely intercepted by bandits. Speaking of intercepted, let me introduce you to my team members, Lynia, Kyr, it's fine, they know about us," he said looking past them.

Two figures melded out of the trees and undergrowth behind the tree they were all sitting at, and approached the seated party. They were both wearing the same odd clothing as Jaren, which made them wonder how Jaren had managed to pick them out of their surroundings. One of them, a very tall man with short black hair and brown eyes had a smile on his face. He had a rather large object slung over his back swaddled in drab green cloth The other, a relatively shorter woman with dark brown hair cut slightly above her shoulders and green eyes had more serious expression on hers, and appeared to be sizing up the two sitting with Jaren as she walked up. She had a rather large sword slung over her back, the metal of the pommel and guard dulled with some dark substance. "Good afternoon, First Sergeant," the woman said, snapping a sharp salute with her right hand, the other man following suit. "Nothing new to report, sir, just some local toughs out looking for these two," she said, nodding towards the two ankuams. Karura smiled while Touka winced and put a hand to her forehead.

Jaren grinned as he returned their salutes, and they all dropped their hands as he did. "Lady Karura, Lady Touka, these are my fellow scouts. Assistant team leader, Leading Sergeant Lynia Milthas, and team specialist Sergeant Kyr Ilvos," he said, gesturing towards the two. They both bowed to Karura, and did the peculiar ritual Jaren had done earlier with Touka when facing her, which she returned.

"Well, now that we've all introduced ourselves, we should probably start heading to Tusukuru. It's about two days away, so we can tell you about the situation that's developed along the way. I figure we have a slight lead on the local strongmen, but they'll likely catch up this evening if they're pacing themselves well. We'll be able to prepare a little surprise for them, and we can show you how the Free Company fights," he said with a smirk. "Shall we get going?" He looked at Touka and Karura, then to his team members. All of them nodded.

"Alright, Free Company's Fifth Team, let's move!"


	2. Chapter 2: The Free Company's Fifth Team

Chapter Two: The Free Company's Fifth Team

The two female warriors from Tusukuru moved through the forest at a fast walk, following their new, oddly-dressed companions. They were spread out, the two of them following slightly behind and to either side of Jaren, who had started to explain what exactly was going on in their adopted homeland. The other two members of the Free Company were spaced apart around the distance of a stone's throw, the man named Kyr in front and the woman named Lynia behind. They were both constantly scanning their surroundings, searching for anything out of the ordinary by the looks of it.

"I'll be giving you a summary of what's been going on, as I'm sure I don't know all of what's been happening. When we reach the capital, my commanding officer Captain Treyar Kern will be able to give you a more complete version. Basically, what's happening is that there's a very real threat of Tusukuru being attacked, but not in the usual way."

"What does 'usual' mean?" Touka asked the question, but Jaren could tell by Karura's expression that she was likely thinking the same thing.

"By 'usual' I mean with armies. The new threat is from people who mean to start a kind of subtle war, if there is such a thing. There won't be campaigns and the marching of soldiers like you're used to. Instead, they mean to infiltrate and cripple Tusukuru from within. This could be in the form of anything from destroying crops in secret, operating as disguised bandit groups who have an unusually good level of organization, sudden attacks on towns and villages that end just as soon as they start, and so on.

"In short, they mean to create a prolonged period of anarchy and chaos that will throw Tusukuru into such a state of weakness that when they do decide to send their regular forces in, there will be nothing left to resist them. They may even be able to play it off as sending a rescue force to help the former nation of Tusukuru. With all your leaders dead or powerless and your foundations crumbled, it would be exceedingly simple for them to "generously" declare the land as being under their protection, and minimize the chance of any conflict with your neighbors. After that, they'll either install puppet leaders in the government, or just proclaim the land of Tusukuru a protectorate of theirs, which has the same end result." Jaren paused to let the gravity of the situation he had outlined sink in.

"A disaster any way you look at it," Karura said. "How are we going to fight against this, and why us? How are we going to be useful if it's going to be like you say?"

"You all have some experience in raids and more, shall we say, unconventional operations. The two of you even posed as a band of ankuams to covertly help out with that rebellion in Na Tunk, after all. Yes, we were there too. I was in the area at the time as part of a First Division effort to help the rebels, but when your group showed up we ended up diverting to other areas so we wouldn't get in your way. You couldn't have known about it, but there was quite a struggle to keep enemy reinforcements off of the rebels while you were all raiding the capital. Frankly, we prefer our battles to be fought and won in secret, or at least have the credit given elsewhere. In any case, in the eyes of Regent Benawi and the officers of the Free Company, that kind of experience makes you perfect for what's to come. If it could be done with the rank and file soldiers of Tusukuru, there wouldn't have been a need for us to come out here and find you."

"It also means the situation is going to be a difficult one, in case you were wondering." Lynia had moved up from her position behind them all and was now keeping pace alongside Jaren. Her face had a serious expression on it with something else that hinted at a touch of annoyance. "They already managed to catch up, Jaren. Do we keep going and tire them out, or should we just make a stand in this clearing here?"

"Already? I would've expected them to be at least an hour behind us," he said with a thoughtful look on his face. "One of their lackeys must have started following the two of you right as you left and placed trail markers so the rest of them could find you. If they showed up this quickly, I'm going to guess they rode to within maybe a quarter mile of us, and then dismounted to follow on foot to try to catch you two off guard. Not like it would make a difference," he added with a chuckle.

Lynia wrinkled a corner of her mouth and cleared her throat. "Orders, Jaren?"

"Stand and fight, my harsh taskmistress, stand and fight," Jaren sighed, and sped up his pace to catch up to Kyr, still ahead of them. "They've gotten close enough Kyr, let's get ready to make a stand in this clearing," he said, falling into step with the taller scout. Kyr nodded, and unslung the large, drab green bundle from his back as he stepped off the road and melded into the tree line silently. They heard rather than saw him climb up into the trees and work his way into a perch in the high branches. Lynia moved into position beside Jaren, slipping on what looked like an unusually heavy and rigid pair of dark leather gauntlets, unsheathing the sword on her back when she was satisfied they were on correctly. The sword itself was quite long, a hand a half sword as far as Touka could tell, and the entire finish was a dull black color that didn't reflect any light. Jaren balled his right hand into a fist and touched it to his right thigh, Kyr and Lynia nodding in acknowledgment of whatever the signal meant. "The two of you are staying right where you're at right now during this. You can draw your weapons if you like, but I don't want either of you making a move off the spot you're standing on no matter what happens," he said to Touka and Karura.

"My, aren't we the prickly martinet all of a sudden," Karura said with an amused smirk. Jaren grimaced and looked to Touka as if to ask if this was going to be normal behavior. Touka just frowned and shrugged. "We'll trust in your judgment for this fight, son of Anterei," she said diplomatically, glaring at Karura afterwards. Karura responded by smiling with mock innocence and sticking her tongue out slightly. Jaren rolled his eyes and drew his weapons, the long knife hanging under his right shoulder and the short sword at his left hip. The finish on the metal of both blades was a dull black similar to Lynia's sword, and the grips were wrapped with what looked like dark brown cord.

"This might be a strange time to ask this, but judging from your weapons you seem to have a unique fighting style. I have this impression I have heard of it or seen it before though, almost like I know what it is," Touka said with a note of interest in her voice. "I thought it might," Jaren said as he turned around to face the road behind them.

"It's known as the Three Valleys Striking Style," he said over his shoulder to Touka. Her eyes widened. "That's an Evinkuruga style! How do you..."

"There'll be time for a proper explanation later, ma'am," Kyr whispered from the treetops. "They're getting close. Five in the main group, sir, three and three coming around the left and right maybe seven throws out," he said, directing the information to Jaren. "Ones moving to the flank are the only ones with ranged weapons I can see."

"Keep any flankers off of us, Kyr. Other than that, targets of opportunity, anyone with missiles first," Jaren said. "Aye, sir," came the muffled reply followed by a noise of a something being pulled taut and a sharp click. Jaren closed his eyes, breathing in slowly and holding it before letting it out again. He continued doing this for a time until the group of town thugs had come to within a stone's throw of where their group had decided to make its stand, at which point his eyes snapped open. There were five of them, as Kyr had said earlier. Touka and Karura recognized them as the thugs they had fought with earlier, some of them still glaring at Karura with a pronounced hatred on their faces, along with evidence of the previous fight. There was a mixture of swords, axes, and daggers among them.

"I'll give you credit for catching up this fast, and while I'm at it give you some free advice. Turn around and go home while your legs can still carry you. You're in the middle of a trap and don't even know it yet," Jaren said to the man he presumed he was the leader, a tall, broad-shouldered, man with a mean look on his scarred face and carrying a large sword.

"I'll overlook the attitude and the arrogance this time, wanderer," he said with a sneer. "Feel lucky that we're not looking for you. Just leave those two women here and walk, if you value your health. You're the one who hasn't realized the tricky spot they're in."

"Is that so?" Jaren asked the question casually, without raising his voice or making any movements. The noise of something cutting through the air broke the relative calm, a scream of pain from behind and to the left of the clearing. Three of the men in front of them flinched and looked around for the source of the noise. The leader and another lean, seasoned-looking fellow next to him made no visible move, keeping their eyes on the group in front of them.

"I think they've secreted an archer somewhere. What say you, Marr?" The leader held his large sword steady in front of him and kept his gaze fixed on Jaren. The other simply shook his head. "Didn't seem like your normal bow and arrow. He's a demon of a marksman and a tracker, to be able to hit our boys out there, let alone know where they're coming from." As the leader finished speaking, they heard the sound again and another yell, this time from the right.

"I bet the bastard is picking off our own archers," the leader growled. "If you think that's enough to scare us off, you're sorely mistaken. We've all fought our share of fights, some of us more than others. Marr and I here fought in the last war against Shikeripetim, been ankuams ever since."

"Doesn't say much about you if that's supposed to be impressive ," Lynia said. "You're not the only ones who have seen your share of war either." She looked even more serious than she had earlier, if that were possible, Touka thought. Her gaze seemed empty, dead, and the way she carried herself demonstrated an air of familiarity with dangerous situations. Touka could see the different effects her words and attitude were having on the armed band; the leader continued to hold his cocky smirk, while the man he had called Marr looked more and more concerned, and the other three who had flinched earlier when Kyr had started firing were exchanging nervous looks. She figured it was likely they had never met this level of resistance before, probably faced with inexperienced bandits and scared townsfolk who treated them with more deference than they deserved.

"Ha, well, we'll see who came out sharper then, won't we?" The leader lowered himself in a crouching stance as he sprang forward towards the group. Jaren stepped in front of the man, quickly placing himself directly in front of the man's advance. Instead of waiting for an attack though, Jaren continued to move, catching him off guard. The leader attempted a diagonal slashing cut from a downwards angle aimed to cut across Jaren's midsection and into his left shoulder, but Jaren neatly dodged the swipe and allowed it to continue harmlessly into the space he had been standing. As the man's sword reached the end of its arc and before he could follow through with another swing, Jaren slammed his short sword into the the tip of the blade. The sudden impact twisted the man's blade outwards, forcing his arms to move accordingly, trapping his dominant arm against his shoulder and his guiding arm at an awkward angle away from his body. Another member of the armed group took the opportunity to launch an attack at Jaren from the side, directing his dagger at Jaren's exposed back. Jaren quickly spun around, trapping the man's dagger-wielding arm in the crook of his own left arm, and delivered a hard stomp to the man's leading ankle. There was a nasty crunch, and the man dropped his dagger as he fell to the ground with a yell, his ankle broken.

"Three Valleys Striking Style, indeed," Touka mumbled, watching Jaren's movements. "I didn't know it was possible for the Evinkuruga to come up with something quite so... inelegant as that," Karura remarked with a smirk. Touka frowned at her companion's words, but did not reply.

Meanwhile, Lynia squared off against the man the leader had called Marr. Lynia had a slight advantage in reach with her hand and a half sword, but not by much as Marr had a slightly shorter double-edged longsword. Unlike the band's leader, Marr circled carefully, keeping his sword close to his body and only moving it to make quick feints at Lynia's equally guarded figure. Lynia responded by cautiously circling as well, only moving out of position to deliver a severe blow with the flat of her blade to the side of an ax-wielding underling who had tried to land a chop from behind. He stumbled forward in pain and from the strangled sound that came out of his mouth what sounded like a broken rib or two. At that point, Lynia took the time to step behind him and quickly deliver a kick into the back of his knee, toppling the man face first into the dirt where he lay still, groaning slightly.

An archer's face appeared along the periphery of the clearing's tree line, as he drew his bow and took aim at the two ankuams standing passively behind the brawl taking place. He went down just as quickly as he had appeared when the sound that had been heard earlier cut through the air once more, and he clutched at something now lodged in his shoulder. The leader of the group swore loudly as he caught sight of this happening out of the corner of his eye, and redoubled his charge against Jaren who continued to skillfully deflect his sword swings away from him. The last man of the group aside from Marr and their leader made to throw his dagger at Lynia, but stopped in mid-throw, disabled by another well-aimed shot. Touka and Karura caught sight of what looked like a shortened arrow with strangely curled fletching at the end of the shaft lodged halfway through his forearm as the man collapsed in pain.

Lynia took the initiative as the last possible distraction in her fight with Marr fell, running at Marr from an angle calculated to place her facing his weak side, away from the imaginary arc in front of his body where he would be able to use his sword most effectively. Marr countered by stepping back quickly, taking a series of rapid, shuffling steps that prevented him from being off-balance, making use of good footwork as he turned to realign himself in relation to Lynia. Lynia, however, was faster and rapidly closed the distance between them. Marr thrust his sword at her torso quickly, but was quickly parried as Lynia spun his sword out and away from her body. At the end of the parry, Lynia removed her left hand from the grip of her sword and swung a quick backhand at Marr's face. Her gauntleted hand made contact with an audible thud, dazing Marr. As he reeled from the blow, she quickly spun her sword around in her hands, one hand on the midsection of the blade and the other near the crossbar of the sword but on the other side of the grip. She dropped into a low crouch, quickly hooking Marr's trailing ankle with one end of the crossbar and pulling hard. Marr, already unbalanced from her strike to his face, found his center of gravity disastrously altered and fell on his back hard, slamming the back of his head into the dirt as he came down. Karura made a noise of approval from her vantage point behind the action.

Lynia stood up from her crouch and restored her hold on her sword to its previous one, exhaling slowly as she did. "All other threats cleared, Jaren, the rest is up to you," she said to Jaren and his surprised looking opponent.

"Hey, now, I don't think you have time to be making face like that with the fight in front of you unfinished," Jaren called out mockingly. He slid into his opponent before he could react, grabbing his right wrist and throwing his arm upwards before moving behind him. The man instinctively let go of his sword with his left, trying to twist around and regain control of the situation, but it proved futile as Jaren delivered a slash with the free long knife in his left hand to the outside of the man's arm near his elbow. The man grunted in pain as Jaren released his grip on him and jumped back the distance of a few steps. Facing Jaren once more, the man raised his sword back up in a guarded stance, wincing from the pain of the wound Jaren had inflicted on his arm. Slowly, the point of his sword began to waver. Staring in disbelief, the man attempted to steady the sword to no effect. His entire right arm began to tremble from bearing the weight of the sword, his right hand losing its grip on the sword and fingers loosening. Finally, the sword dropped out of his now useless grip, falling with a thud into the dirt of the clearing.

"What did you do to me? What kind of trick is this?" The man glared at Jaren as he asked him the question through gritted teeth. He had asked the question angrily, but they could all detect a hint of fear in his voice as well.

"I damaged the nerves in your right arm a bit. You'll be fine if you rest that arm and let it heal up for a month or so. Should give you enough time to sort yourself out, get out of the sword for hire game," Jaren said. The rest of the armed band were coming to, in varying states of injury. "The rest of you should take my advice as well. Go back to farming or whatever trade it is you can do. Leave the ankuam business to the professionals. Go home," Jaren yelled to the unseen fighters still skulking around in the trees and undergrowth around the clearing. "Last chance before my friend in the shadows starts shooting to kill instead of wounding, so I suggest you take it while I'm still guaranteeing you safe passage out of here. There should be enough of you to help carry your less fortunate friends back to town."

Jaren sheathed his pair of blades as the rest of the men emerged from the trees slowly, looking around them apprehensively for the source of the withering fire that had left many of their number wounded. They gathered up the weapons and injured before turning around and heading away from the clearing back in the direction of town. Their leader, still clutching his right arm tightly, turned to glare at Jaren before stalking off with the rest of his men. Lynia waited until they were just out of sight before quietly heading off in their direction, her hand a half sword still unsheathed and ready for use. Jaren motioned for the rest of the group to wait, and listened intently for any signs of further trouble.

Lynia came back into the clearing a couple of minutes later, sword sheathed. She waved her hand horizontally across her face as a signal to Jaren as she came closer to them, Jaren nodding and breathing a sigh of relief. Shortly after Lynia made it back to their group, Kyr climbed down from his perch in the trees. The loose scarf she had seen him and the others wearing earlier was wound around his head so that only his eyes were showing, and he carefully unraveled it to settle loosely on his neck as before. He was also carrying what Touka figured had been wrapped up in the bundle he had slung on his back earlier, but she couldn't say what it was exactly. The majority of it was made of wood painted a matte brown color, to prevent any light from reflecting as far as she could guess, and what looked like a half-sized bow mounted perpendicular to the rest of the wooden body. The rest of it was made of mechanisms whose workings she could only guess at, made of a dull colored steel.

Jaren saw the interested look on her face as she looked over the weapon. "I see you've taken some interest in Kyr's crossbow. I'll have him set aside some time and explain it to you when we're back at the capital. He'll need to maintain it anyways, so it'd be a perfect time for him to give you an idea of how it works." Kyr nodded as he busied himself with the weapon, pulling a catch on a weapon that slackened the bow, and re-wrapped the weapon up in the drab green cloth they had seen earlier. "Remind me whenever you have a free moment, ma'am," Kyr said politely, swinging the once again wrapped weapon over his back.

"I want to thank you for the help, First Sergeant Strasert, I really do appreciate it, along with being able to see your art of war up close," Touka said after the group had reassembled. "Please, no need to be so formal. Jaren is just fine," Jaren said, holding his hands out slightly in a gesture of appeal.

"Quite the demonstration, Jaren," Karura said. "I've heard stories about your Free Company, but getting a good look this close was much more entertaining. We should spar together sometime."

"All in good time, Lady Karura," Jaren said with a smile. "Let's get back to the capital first, though, shall we?" Karura smiled back, executing a mock curtsy, her hands lifting an imaginary skirt outwards. "Lead the way, Sir First Sergeant."


	3. Chapter 3: Stories

Chapter Three: Stories

After walking along the forest path they had taken after the brief fight with the ankuam group, they had been traveling in silence that had only been broken by Jaren's whispered commands to halt and listen, occasionally sending either Lynia or Kyr to sneak up a distance ahead or double back to make sure there was no one following them. Other than that, there had only been a brief pause where Jaren passed Touka and Karura a waterskin and the other two scouts stopped to drink as well.

"Now seems as good a time to stop as any," Jaren said suddenly. It was the late afternoon now, and they had come close to a nearby stream when Jaren made this announcement.

"The cache should be somewhere around here, let's start searching for it," he said. "Crooked trees, disturbed brush, you know what to look for." He turned to scan the surrounding area, Lynia and Kyr following suit in different directions. Touka looked to Karura, who shrugged and shook her head slightly. They watched quietly as the three poked around in the area for whatever had been hidden for them.

"I found it, Jaren," Lynia called from a particularly dense cluster of bushes near a broken tree. She carefully pulled out several large packs made of what looked like thick, oiled leather, judging from the slight sheen that came off of the material.

"Outstanding. Well, let's get to it. Remember, we need working and dress uniforms. Make sure the pack you take with you has the dress uniform. Return the empty packs the dress uniforms came in to the cache for Third Division to collect after, and pack your patterned uniforms in the same pack as the working uniform." Jaren picked up and inspected one of the packs as he rattled off the series of instructions. "This one's yours, Kyr," he said, handing the pack over to the tall scout.

"Well then, I'll go off a little ways and make sure I look the part," Kyr said with a smirk. He took the pack from Jaren and walked off in the direction they had come from. Lynia hefted one of the packs onto her shoulders and handed the last remaining one to Jaren wordlessly. He nodded at his assistant team leader and headed in the opposite direction as Kyr.

Karura turned to Jaren as she left. "Looking the part? The part of what?"

"The Free Company, or should I say, the storied Free Company," he replied with a mischievous smile. "If you'll excuse me," he said with a slight tilt of the head towards the pair, and walked across the path into a cluster of vegetation.

"Are you as curious as I am, Touka?" The Evinkuruga woman just stood there with a thoughtful look on her face as she cupped her chin with one of her hands, clasping the other one against an elbow. Karura grinned at her companion, and folded her arms over her chest as they waited.

Several minutes later, when Jaren returned, both of them widened their eyes in surprise at the sight of him. Instead of the strangely patterned clothing he had been wearing earlier, he had changed into something that looked more akin to a formal military uniform. The loose tunic was gone now, replaced by a closely-fitting jacket the color of sand sporting a thin, tall, slightly rounded collar over a shirt the same drab green color as the cloth wrapping Kyr had used earlier to cover his crossbow. There were also small silver tabs on each side of the collar, indicators of his rank, Karura guessed. The entire garment including the collar ran from high up on the neck to midway between the waist and knee. Silver buttons ran up the front of the jacket, and similar silver fittings were used for the epaulets and buttons near the outside edge of each cuff. The pants were the same color as his jacket, and of a longer cut than what he had previously been wearing, with thin leather bands clasped around the ankles that had the loose part of his pants pulled over them slightly. Also new were the boots he was wearing, which had a taller cuff going higher up past the ankles, as well as being made of a smoother leather on the outside rather than the rough looking material of the other pair they had seen him wearing. In addition, he was wearing a gray cloth belt with black piping along the edges, as well as a brightly polished silver-colored buckle on one end and a tip made of the same at the other. Attached to the belt were the short sword and long knife he had been wielding earlier, although the sheaths were made of much finer-looking materials, and the knife was placed in a more traditional manner at his right hip instead of hanging below his shoulder.

"What do you think?" Jaren set the large pack on the ground along with the bundle of his folded patterned uniform on top of it and straightened up, placing his arms at his side as if for inspection.

"Absolutely dashing," Karura said, placing her hands against the sides of her face and making an expression of mock adoration. Jaren's mouth creased itself in a frown. "I think you look very handsome in it, Jaren," Touka chimed in. Karura aimed a particularly large, and in Touka's mind, worrisome smile at her.

"Ah, I can see the beginnings of a fragile new love born between warriors. It will be like the legends of Anterei the Founder and his companion Melian all over again," Karura said melodramatically, again with her hands cupping her face like a young girl lost in her infatuation with someone. Touka blushed furiously. "I can compliment him if I want to Karura, you don't need to make anything of it. I'm just being honest in saying that I think he happens to look rather refined," she said hastily, still blushing. Jaren chuckled, embarrassed by the compliment.

"He does look rather good in it, doesn't he?" The group turned as one to see Lynia emerge from the trees, dressed similarly. The cut of the coat was slightly more feminine, and she wore a light buff-colored scarf around her neck. The metal tabs on her coat's collar were different from Jaren's, confirming Karura's guess that they were in fact indicators of rank. She came over to take a look at his uniform herself, carefully peering over every detail. Spotting a loose thread on a shoulder of his coat, she lightly brushed it off. "Well, I'd say you're ready to charm the local girls with all that," Lynia said with a slight smile.

"Don't remind me," Jaren said with a sigh. "I'm remembering what happened last time we made a show of ourselves staying at that inn in the center of Noseshechika. I couldn't leave the room without a swarm of girls surrounding, asking me all sorts of questions, trying to get me to go somewhere with them."

"I, on the other hand, remember that quite fondly seeing as I got to pick up the pieces once you inevitably turned down any offers," Kyr called as he walked back. He stopped and gave Jaren and Lynia's uniforms a quick glance as they did the same.

"You mean between all the fights with the local men who didn't like you stealing all the attention," Lynia smirked and playfully prodded him in the chest. "What about that one noblewoman with all the admirers? How many duels did you end up fighting again? Was it four or five?"

Kyr looked up towards the sky, pretending to think. "Hmm, I believe it was six. Would've been seven except that last one was so drunk he ended up collapsing after missing a wild sword swing. Can't really help it if the ladies enjoy the rugged look," rubbing the stubble on his face with the back of his fingers.

"How you ever got away with that when you weren't in the Free Company, I'll never know," Lynia said. "Didn't the inspecting sergeants ever punish you for that?"

"Only in our Second Division days, and only when they caught me. I usually volunteered for some kind of extra duty that got me out of garrison whenever it was time for that. About the same effort involved as being subjected to 'supplementary' physical exercises, and I got to keep myself looking the way I wanted to."

Jaren cleared his throat loudly. "Hate to interrupt the reminiscing, but we've got to get moving again. Return the empty packs to the cache, stow your pattern uniforms and let's head on to Tusukuru," Jaren said. The three of them quickly folded and packed their patterned uniforms away, and shouldered the other set of packs left for them as they returned the now empty ones to their former hiding spot.

"Sorry for the sudden halt, let's be on our way," Jaren said to Touka and Karura. The group began moving at their previous fast walk pace along the forest path. "I'm hoping to pass through some of the border villages by early evening so they can put the local rumor mills in action. Hopefully, by tomorrow word will spread to neighboring provinces via the other towns on the border. The capital proper shouldn't be a problem seeing as the merchants are up late, not to mention the large numbers of sentries present that will likely spot us entering. Both of those groups should help when they get back to homes or barracks within the city, and it's almost certain that merchants and bored soldiers will talk about interesting things they see, namely us."

"Is that part of your group's plan to fight the threat you mentioned earlier?" Touka looked over to Jaren after she asked the question.

"Indeed it is. Captain Treyar felt it would be a bit odd for some unknown force in Tusukuru to repel the enemies so suddenly, and so fiercely. It'd be easier for them to accept the idea that Regent Benawi hired members of the Free Company to strengthen his existing forces. That way they don't look too deeply into our real origins as being from Anterei, and it also starts spreading distrust within their ranks as they start becoming suspicious of one another for leaking the information. He's very thorough, Captain Treyar."

"You have to be, to lead your own special group, at the age of thirty-two no less," Lynia added to Jaren's assessment of the situation. Jaren nodded in agreement. "Very true."

"Thirty-two? I was expecting a seasoned old veteran, going off what you've mentioned in passing about him," Karura said. "He's some sort of genius then, I take it?"

"I'd say that's a fair label for him. Captain Treyar is from an old Anterei bloodline, the Kern bloodline. They're famous for the military men and women they've turned out over the years, and also for being the single largest source of Anterei's Marshals ever since the position was created. They're also well-represented when it comes to other areas of expertise as well, seeing as they traditionally will take on another profession if they can no longer serve or retire for family reasons."

"Marshals? I'm not familiar with the title," Touka interjected. "Neither am I," Karura said.

"I'd hope not, we go to great lengths to make sure they're not discussed outside of Anterei official business, and even then we use substitute words to hint at them. You're familiar with the famous Battle at the Western Straits?"

"Of course! What Evinkuruga isn't? The legendary last great battle in the campaign to save the Evinkuruga homeland from the Northern Raiders is something everyone learns in their early years. Anterei had already experienced The Fracturing, but managed to be of tremendous help because many were living alongside our people."

"Ah, forgive me for asking then. I forgot that many of the stories passed down among your people are common to ours as well. If you know about the Battle at the Western Straits, you know about the Five Commander-Generals and how important they were to the efforts to repel the Eastern Raiders," Jaren paused for a brief moment, waiting to see Touka nod before continuing. "Three of them came from the Evinkuruga, and two from the Anterei, making for five as a whole. One of the best kept secrets is that there was a third from Anterei, someone senior to all of them whose advice they followed, the Sixth Commander-General, some call her."

"Her?"

"Yes, Meir Kern, the legendary First Marshal of Anterei and also the first matriarch of the Kern bloodline," Jaren said. "In the stories, they make reference to a Miria, a mythical deity of victory as being their inspiration."

"And that Miria really refers to this First Marhsal of Anterei named Meir?"

"This is quite a lot to hear all at once," Touka said with a surprised look on her face. "With someone this famous in your people's history, I'm imagining her descendants can be traced and are known?"

"Correct. Every branch of the Kern lineage, no matter how distant, carries some of her blood. By tradition, they favor military service above all else, and their upbringing and natural abilities shows that. They're one of the premier bloodlines of the Anterei people, and they take great care to show why that is. Every great military victory, every seemingly hopeless situation turned favorable, or every situation that could have ended up much, much worse but didn't is likely the doing of some member of the Kern bloodline in some way, if you delve deeply enough. Even with a legacy like that, Captain Treyar manages to stand out as distinctly gifted."

"He's quite the poet on the side, if you ever get the chance to hear it," Kyr remarked as they continued walked along the path. "Looks like we're coming up on a village, sir," he said, shading his eyes against the sun. Jaren squinted off into the distance. "I can hardly make it out, but seeing as you're the one with the best eyes here, I'll take your word for it that those dots off in the distance are houses." He ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly before looking up sharply in surprise. "Damn it all, I forgot about the caps. Treyar left instructions that we should wear them when outside with the badge and all. Sorry, you two, we're going to have to stop for yet another adjustment to our official appearance," he said apologetically to Touka and Karura as they all stopped to rummage through their packs once more.

Jaren fished out of his pack what looked to be a hat of sorts, made of soft cloth the same sand color as the coats and pants they were wearing. He held one edge of it in his left hand, and affixed a large metal badge to it. Placing it on his head carefully, he then pulled it to one side so it hung off his head and drooped slightly on his left. The badge was made up of a large emblem that he had centered on the hat to be above his right eye. The emblem itself was a brass-colored, three-pointed leaf with a silver sword running from the stem to the central tip of the leaf. Overall, it added to the already distinct uniform they were already wearing.

"I'm just glad I'm not of high enough rank I have to wear the other stuff as well, if you can believe that," he said with a confidential tone to the pair of ankuams. "Bad enough as it is, I don't know how Captain Treyar puts up with wearing all of it."

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not too fond of it myself," Kyr said as he straightened his own hat on his head. "Just another thing to worry about and keep clean."

"You mean pick up after the inevitable fights you always manage to get into," Lynia said dourly as she adjusted hers. "That too," Kyr replied with a wink that made her grimace. "What is it about caps and people knocking them off anyways?"

"Let's not start any fights this time if possible," Jaren said. They sped up their pace, wanting to get to the village before the sun set. It took them around a quarter of an hour to reach the village, but the effort seemed to be well worth it. As they neared, they could still see the residents walking around leisurely, neighbors and families taking a short break at the end of the day's work. The younger children noticed their approach first, but it was the younger adults who called everyone's attention to them. They could feel all eyes being turned in their direction, and many more people ran out from inside of their homes to see what the sudden noise was about.

"It really is the Free Company," Karura overheard a young woman whisper to her nearby friends. She was watching Jaren rather intently, almost to the point of but just short of staring. Jaren flashed a smile in her direction and bowed his head slightly, causing her to flush bright red and her friends to giggle. "Come on now, if you stare at him any harder he'll think you were trying to eat him alive with your eyes," one of the embarrassed woman's friends teased.

"Quite popular with the womenfolk, I see," Karura said to Jaren quietly. "It's more of a fault rather than a benefit at this point in my life," Jaren said to her out of the side of his mouth. "I'd be a lot happier about it if I wasn't already waiting for someone."

"My, that's rather candid of you. What's the lucky girl's name?" Karura distributed her own share of smiles, mainly at the sizable number of young men whose eyes were following her down the village road with rapt attention. She briefly looked over at Jaren to see a wistful smile cross his features. "I'll tell you about her some other time," he said. "Hmm, now I'm even more curious than if you had said nothing.," Karura said playfully.

Touka ran up to the two of them. "Is this normal, Jaren?" She looked a bit amazed at all the attention. "More or less. Don't you cause a little bit of excitement whenever you go anywhere, being an Evinkuruga?"

"Some, but I don't think anything on the order of this," she said as she looked around. "All the better then," Lynia said. "They probably leave you alone out of respect for the Evinkuruga legacy. We're more of a popular attraction, you could say," she deadpanned.

"Move aside, please, move aside," a voice called out from behind a large group of people blocking the path up ahead. The voice belonged to a tall man who was clearing a path for a much older woman, most likely one of the village elders. Jaren leading the way, the group walked up to her and stopped. He removed his hat and carefully tucked it into one of the epaulets on his coat, Kyr and Lynia following his example shortly after. "Would I be correct in addressing you as a village elder, ma'am?" Jaren's tone of voice was respectful, but also expressed a confident aura of authority.

"Yes, young man, that would be correct," she said as they politely bowed to her. "May I ask what brings the famous Free Company to this village? As you can see, it's a peaceful village despite being a bit larger than most."

"It seems that way. My name is First Sergeant Jaren Strasert, these are my subordinates Leading Sergeant Lynia Milthas and Sergeant Kyr Ilvos," he said as they bowed to the elder respectfully. "We were just hoping to stop for a short while and maybe get a hot meal, as we've been traveling for quite some time. I had heard there was an inn in this particular village, elder," Jaren explained.

"Ah, you heard correctly then. You're welcome to stop for a meal, although I'm still curious as to why you're all here in the first place."

"Well, Regent Benawi will announce why soon enough as it is, so I guess there's no harm in your village getting the news early. There's reason to believe that a group of raiders is going to move into the area, and we have been hired to help rout them by the Regent and the local council."

The gathered crowd began to murmur at the unexpected announcement, mothers and fathers unconsciously holding their children to them tightly, and young couples clasping one another's hands anxiously. The village elder closed her eyes slowly, sighing. "So it is to be war again? I still remember the troubles two years ago when the Emperor disappeared from Tusukuru. Being a border village, you can imagine that most of the fighting took place here earlier than the interior. We had to evacuate this place for months on end, until the fighting was ended."

"There won't be any need for that, this time around," Jaren said his gaze steely and his voice grave. "At most, the men of this village will be used as militia. There will be no need to pull them away from their land and loved ones because that is what they will be assigned to guard. The Regent hired us for a reason, and that is to use our expertise to fight this threat. The only mobilization that will be done under the Regent's orders will be of us and a corps of elite soldiers from the Capital Guard," he said. "You may hold us to those words."

"I see," a new voice spoke up. The voice belonged to an older man, probably a war veteran judging from the scars and lines that crossed his weathered face. "Normally, I'd be hard pressed to trust in such a grand promise, but seeing as it's coming from the Regent and the Free Company no less, I feel that it has some weight to it." Apparently, the man had some standing in the village, as the crowd seemed more at ease after he had spoken his piece. The village elder nodded her head slowly.

"Gild has the nature of the situation well in his grasp. Thank you for your advice, Gild," she said to the man, who nodded in reply. "If you'd like, we can continue this at the inn. I'm sure the village as a whole is intrigued to see you all, so hopefully you can help them satisfy their curiosity."

"With pleasure," Jaren said. "Please, lead the way." The village elder, flanked by the tall man, seemingly her attendant, moved through the crowd towards a larger building down the road. Jaren and the rest of the group fell into step behind her. As they went towards the inn, the man the elder had called Gild started to walk alongside Jaren. "Young man, have we met before? Something in this old head of mine tells me this isn't the first time I've seen you."

"Perhaps," Jaren said as he eyed the man. "You're a war veteran I assume?"

Gild's eyes creased as he smiled. "Now what gave that away? Or is it just another soldier's nose for smelling out others of his kind?"

"You limp slightly with your left leg," Jaren said. "I would've thought it just a limp except when I put that together with the scars I can see and your reaction to our little declaration, I'd say you've had at least some experience with war."

"Not bad, not bad at all," Gild chuckled. "I still can't place where I've seen you before though, try as I might. It's a terrible thing, being old. I don't suppose you were there during the Border Wars?"

"That's a bit before my time, sir," Jaren said with a laugh. "I was all of fifteen years when that was happening."

"Ah! Excuse an old man his age," Gild said, laughing as well. "I tend to forget how long it's been since these things have happened. My, that was a long time ago, before this country was named Tusukuru even. Eh, now that I think about it more carefully, maybe it was some time more recent."

"Most likely. I've only been in the Free Company for a little over a year at this point."

"And before?"

"Before, I wasn't part of any group. I drifted from country to country selling my services as a scout."

"As a scout you say," Gild said as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Interesting, maybe I'm getting you confused. I've seen my share of mercenaries too, with all the campaigns I've been on."

"I'd be interested in hearing about them. Let me just see to my companions first," Jaren said as they entered the inn and sat down. He walked over to Lynia and Kyr to whisper some instructions before going over to where Karura and Touka had seated themselves. "If anyone should ask why you're with us, tell them the Regent requested we join you on your way back to the capital. The people here probably know more of your reputation than anyone else, seeing as you fought personally with the Emperor. Above all, we're trying to give the people some confidence in the forces we're assembling."

"Well planned," Touka said with an approving nod. "If the threat you described to us is as great as you say it is, then the people's will to fight is key." Karura shrugged and nodded silently. "Alright, well, we'll be here for an hour or two at most so feel free to rest until then. I'll be over there with Gild swapping war stories it seems. I'd invite the two of you to listen in, except I think they'll be the kind that won't be interesting to warriors of your caliber used to fighting on your own."

"Hmm, tactics and such? Not very interesting, to be honest," Karura yawned. "I find charging in at full force is more than adequate in almost all situations."

"Well, not all of us were blessed with the strength and resilience of the Giriyagina line," Jaren said with a tentative laugh. "If you'll excuse me, then." Jaren moved to sit with Gild and they could overhear them spiritedly telling each other soldier's tales. Looking around the room, Karura noticed that Kyr was surrounded by a throng of admirers, primarily young and female, as well as being watched not altogether happily by several young men of the village. Lynia, meanwhile, was holding some sort of discussion with the older women of the village and their families. She seemed especially happy when addressing the concerns of the younger girls. Aside from her earlier bantering with Kyr, this was the only time Karura had seen the usually stern woman smile.

The food arrived shortly after, the meal a simple but filling one. Gild and Jaren had been talking throughout the meal, and continued to do so after they had finished. Gild said something that lit Jaren's face up with a broad smile, and he motioned over the noise of the gathered villagers to the rest of the group traveling to Tusukuru to join them. Gild had placed a large wood board on the table. The board itself was inlaid with numerous intersecting lines and other symbols carved into the surface. He had also placed two pairs of cloth bags on the table, one colored brown, the other colored gray, and both had drawstrings holding them closed at the top.

"I challenged your friend Jaren to a game of General's Folly, and he's obliged an old man by taking enough time out of his day to test his mettle," he said with a grin. "I assume your comrades in arms are intimately familiar with this game, but I wonder about your escort to the capital." He glanced up from the board to the faces of the two fighting women from Tusukuru.

"Familiar, no, but I have seen the game played and have a vague idea of the rules," Karura said. Seeing Touka giving her a curious look, she grinned smugly. "From spending so much time in taverns," she said in a tone calculated to annoy Touka. "You might learn a thing or two from it."

"I'm afraid I don't know much of the game other than the name," Touka said, making an effort to ignore Karura's verbal jab. "It's a game of strategy I take it?"

"That's a fine way to describe it," Gild said. "Think of it as the things a general, or for that matter any leader of fighters in combat has to take into consideration, made simplified to make a game that still manages to teach axioms of war." He placed his hands on one of the gray bags. "Take this pair, for instance. This gray pair contains pieces representing a standard military force, a regular, trained, equipped, organized, and supplied army you might see in any country. People say it's the best choice for beginners because of the pieces' predictable behavior and nature when employing them in the game. However, many underestimate their power when an experienced player puts them to good use."

"This brown pair, then, is the more irregular side of the game," he said with a gesture to the other bag on the table. "This pair represents anything outside of traditional military forces such as rebels, hastily-raised militia, or bandits. They are less strong in the traditional sense, and are tricky to use effectively, but have their own host of rules and behaviors that can make them powerful as well. Most players fancying themselves experienced hands at the game will usually play brown, as it's most definitely the more showy side to play."

Gild leaned back slightly in his seat on the table's bench and frowned. "Of course, those are the players who rely on cheap tricks and ruses, along with the reputation of brown as being the more difficult side to play to help put their opponents on edge before the game even starts. Really, their skills are not that much higher than most others. I'm getting off the topic at hand, however," as he sat straight up once again. "I challenged you to the game, First Sergeant Jaren, so I'll pick my set first. I choose gray, infantry specialty." He picked one of the gray bags and set it down on the right side of the board closest to him with a clinking noise.

"A solid choice," Jaren said with a thoughtful nod. "Gray is best played with a core of solid infantry, I find, rather than fast but temperamental cavalry."

"Hmph. Cavalry are at best a supplement. They can never replace a disciplined body of infantry with spears. Of course, this could be an old soldier's pride talking," Gild said with a smirk that caused the lines around his eyes to wrinkle.

"A well-founded pride, I'm sure," Jaren said amiably. "Given that, I'd like to ask you if you'll be willing to let me choose black." As he finished speaking, he reached into his pack and pulled out a black bag of the same size as the others. Gild recoiled slightly in surprise. "I... you have a set?"

"I do. You're welcome to inspect the pieces." Jaren handed the bag to Gild who shook out the bag carefully and looked at the pieces. The pieces themselves were made of a black-colored wood with small white symbols and numbers inlaid into their surface. Gild checked over them with an almost amazed look on his face. Several of the tavern patrons had noticed and walked on over to see what the excitement was about.

"What's this, Gild? He actually have a set of black, then?" Gild looked to the man who had asked him the question and simply nodded. He handed the bag back to Jaren. "You seem to be full of surprises, my boy. Your set has the One-Armed Captain's signet on the back. I'm surprised enough that you met the man, but even more that you took his personal black set. What set did you play to beat him?"

"Brown, Verren's Legacy," Jaren said. Gild raised his eyebrows and some of the spectators began having whispered conversations. "Verren's Legacy? Even among the brown set, that particular specialty's never been an easy one to use, let alone against a black set. Sorry for the distraction, I accept. It's been quite some time since I've played against black, and too long since I've played someone of your skill, if I've got a good measure of you from you having this set."

"Only one way to find out," Jaren remarked as he opened his bag's drawstring. "What's the unit count going to be for this game?"

"I was thinking a skirmish count of twenty-five would be good, as I'm sure you'll be wanting to get the capital before it gets too late."

"Fine by me, let's get started then," Jaren said as he pulled out a handful of pieces and shook them around slightly so they were facing up. He picked a few pieces out at a time before placing them on the table and against the board so they were standing facing him, Gild doing the same. After Jaren had done the same process with a little more than a dozen pieces, he began to transfer them to the board. Curiously, he placed some face down and stacked them one atop the other on a single space before placing a single piece at the very top of the pile face up. He did this in several spaces on the board until he had only a few left, which he placed face down to the right side of the board.

"I should probably explain what it is that I'm doing, as the black set in this game can be rather difficult to understand. Black is supposed to represent mercenaries somewhere between the professional armies of the gray set and the irregular fighters of brown. The face down pieces on the board are unknown pieces headed by a known piece, and this is supposed to represent the idea of mercenaries acting in a way that conceals their true strength. At the same time, it keeps the opponent guessing as he's never quite sure which of these groups of pieces is the strongest, or if any of them even differ from one another. For all Gild knows, these are all identical groups of pieces that will always give him trouble, or they could all be different types of groups tailored for specific tactics."

"And the pieces on the side of the board?" Karura had asked the question from side of the table nearest the pieces where she was standing with her arms folded over her middle watching the game.

"Ah, those are what they call the reserve pieces. Think of them as additional pieces I can call into the fight. I can put them into play at any time face up or down, but if I do that I can't take any other actions for that turn. Gild can do that with his gray set as well, but his must be played face up seeing as regular armies aren't trained for stealth, and even if they were, their supply lines would give them away."

"Hate to rush, but I think we should get started and they can try to pick up the rules as we go along," Gild said. "I feel like having some ale with the game, can I interest any of you in some as well?"

"I usually don't when playing General's Folly, but I suppose I can make an exception this time, how about you two?" Jaren looked over to Touka and Karura for an answer. Touka shook her head. "I'm afraid I have to decline. If you're going to be drinking, I should be at my most alert in case anything were to happen to you."

"When you put it that way, I almost feel like I shouldn't," Jaren said with a wince. "Oh no, I didn't mean to say anything like that!" Touka flushed slightly as she waved her hands frantically. Karura smiled the usual smile she reserved for whenever Touka embarrassed or otherwise worked herself up over small things. "I'll share a drink with you two," she said as she stretched languidly and sat down next to Jaren. "It'd be too sad to have two grown men drink by themselves in the company of women."

Before Jaren could say anything in response she had wrapped herself around his left arm and laid her head to rest against his shoulder and neck. "Ah, now there's something I miss about being a young soldier," Gild said with a grin and a nostalgic look on his face. "I never had someone as beautiful as you on my arm, though, if you don't mind my saying so ma'am," he said with a wink to Karura. "Perhaps if our uniforms were as well-tailored and good as yours, it would've helped."

Karura leaned herself into Jaren a little more forcefully and rubbed her head against him as she tried to gain a better perch against her unwilling headrest. "It's not so much the uniform as the man underneath it, I think," she said in a sultry tone. Touka had been watching this unfold from the beginning, but remained speechless with her mouth open and a scandalized look on her face.

"Don't get too distracted, now; I still expect a challenging game from you," he said with a wink. As Gild turned to call for ale, Jaren turned to frown at Karura, who made replied by closing her eyes and breathing a contented sigh as she leaned into him further.

"I'd accuse you of being difficult, but I think I'm getting to the point where I'm just going to consider this normal behavior," Jaren muttered with a resigned look on his face. "Fine then, do as you wish. I just hope you understand it's awful of you to act like this, knowing what you do about me."

"I'm sure the woman you're waiting for wouldn't mind this," Karura whispered, her eyes still closed. "I might even be doing you a favor, helping you renew your convictions that she's the only one for you, and that you won't do anything to break that trust."

"That's an awfully twisted way of looking at this," Jaren replied under his breath. "Sorry if this is making you uncomfortable," he said as Touka sat down on his right, having recovered from her intial shock at Karura's actions.

"Please, there's no need to worry about me," Touka said stuffily. "I almost expect this kind of thing from her now after traveling with her for over a year." Jaren chuckled uneasily. "Is that so?"

Any further conversation was halted by the arrival of a young woman bringing over a tray with mugs of ale. She had a surprised look on her face that Jaren was already sitting with a woman hanging off one arm, and another on the other side. She caught his gaze as she shifted the mugs from her serving tray to the table, and gave him a knowing look and a wink that seemed to say "good luck." Jaren returned her silent encouragement with an half-smile that was spectacularly unconvincing.

"My, my, you Free Company boys sure work fast," Gild said with a hearty laugh. He jerked his head in the direction of Kyr and the swarm of young women who were seemingly attached to him as he managed to keep up multiple conversations while making sure no single one of them got too close. "I suppose you being their leader accounts for your more subtle approach," he said as he lifted a mug of ale to his lips, his eyes smiling at the three on the opposite side of the table.

"Well, it's like my cousins always told me," Jaren said wearily, pausing to take a gulp of his own ale. "Quality over quantity is the secret for happiness with women." As he finished his sentence and set his mug down on the table, two very different reactions took place on either side of him. Touka cleared her throat loudly as she furrowed her brow and blushed a deep shade of red. Meanwhile, Karura giggled and shifted her arms to wrap around Jaren's torso instead of just around one arm. Gild laughed loudly again. Jaren let out a sigh and proceeded to take another swig of his ale.

"Now that we've got our drinks, I think we can finally get started," Gild said. "Black takes precedence over gray, so you get the first move Jaren." Jaren shifted a stack of one of his pieces from one line to another, and split another stack of four pieces whose top piece had a triangular symbol with a horizontal dash in the middle into two stacks of two. Moving them forward as well, he flipped over the top piece of the one that had been on the bottom, revealing a pair of wavy lines. Gild frowned at this development. "Starting out aggressive, I see, fielding a patrol of Land Trawlers at the very beginning, and at the front as well."

"Reconnaissance in force is a favored tactic of mine, I suppose," Jaren said. Gild narrowed his eyes slightly and gave Jaren an appraising look for a moment, but shrugged and took a mouthful of ale just as quickly. The game continued for a few minutes at what as far as Touka and Karura knew was a slow pace. Being only basically familiar with the game's inner workings, they relied on the brief explanations Gild and Jaren gave at key turning points in the game, as well as the reactions the two players managed to elicit from one another as well as the observers around the table when attempting an especially audacious move or suffering a setback. They explained a multitude of rules, but the most important one they had described was that of positioning and flanking. Every piece had a small triangular mark at the top of one side that indicated the front of the piece, and based off of that the sides and rear as well. From Jaren's remarks, this was key as some pieces were extremely strong when fighting head on, but suffered enormous penalties when fighting certain pieces from the side or the rear.

Jaren's strategy was heavily reliant on his forces' smaller size and the mobility they enjoyed compared to Gild's more rigid defensive formations. He was constantly probing Gild's lines to try and break the carefully arrayed tiles, but only succeeding in tying down his units for a turn or two with harassing archer fire and raids before he had to withdraw in the face of Gild's realignment of his units to counter the threat. Gild responded by sending out small groups of light infantry as skirmishers, preventing Jaren from staying in any one spot for too long. He did have a handful of cavalry pieces, but it was clear that they were only present to harass and herd Jaren's pieces into places where they could be fixed and destroyed by Gild's heavy infantry formations.

Jaren had only managed to remove two of Gild's pieces from the board after several attempts at this when he had managed to hit his vanguard forces from three different directions at once. The ploy was successful thanks to Jaren's deployment of one reserve piece whenever he managed to use his archers to pin down Gild's vulnerable units in such a way that it took him two or three turns to respond and force Jaren to temporarily withdraw. In a matter of minutes, Jaren had deployed all his reserve pieces, which turned out to be almost all patrols of what Gild had referred to earlier as "Land Trawlers."

These pieces had several interesting properties that made them much more powerful than they would appear to be when first considered. They were treated as light infantry, but dealt damage equal to that of heavy infantry. They moved unusually fast whenever the board indicated coastal or riverine terrain, and had no penalties imposed on them for being attacked from the flanks or rear. Most notably, however, was their ability that Gild and Jaren both referred to as "The Call." If any one patrol held still and initiated The Call, all other Land Trawler patrols were able to move twice as fast in that piece's direction until they joined it. At that time, they could combine into a single, massive patrol or spread out into formation. Jaren had used this ability to great effect after all of his Land Trawler pieces had been placed on the board, and after using The Call twice he had rapidly rearranged the entire flow of the game in his favor. Exploiting the Land Trawler's naturally fast movement, he managed to leverage their ability to traverse terrain near water even more quickly, and combined their double speed under the conditions of The Call. Essentially, he was able to move faster than Gild could reposition his forces into less vulnerable formations, and launched devastating flank assaults every other turn. Gild began to lose pieces as Jaren's tactics gained momentum, and the game was ended astonishingly fast in Jaren's favor. Gild had lost every last one of his pieces, while Jaren had only suffered the loss of two mercenary archer pieces and one band of mercenary pikemen by the time the woman from earlier brought over a second round of ale.

"Well played, young one, well played," Gild said as he stood up from his seat to shake Jaren's hand in congratulations. Several members of the crowd that had been watching clapped him on the back energetically and offered their congratulations. "I see you definitely deserve that black set, and if your Free Company wages war anything like you play General's Folly, I'm sure the defense of Tusukuru is in good hands." Jaren grinned as he raised his mug of ale. "To the safety of Tusukuru then," he called out in a voice loud enough for the entire tavern to hear.

"To the safety of Tusukuru," Gild and the group watching their game echoed, and the rest of the tavern followed suit. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaren caught Kyr having difficulty standing up properly as a result of one rather pretty-looking woman who was more than just a little drunk and clinging to one of his arms and smiled at the sight. He downed the rest of his ale in a long gulp, managing to finish faster than everyone present with the exception of Karura.

"My, so there are things in this world that even you can't beat others at," Karura teased.

"I'm not so sure being able to drink so much is something to be proud of," Touka said disapprovingly with a frown on her face.

"Maybe not, but I have to admit I find that kind of endurance in a woman appealing," Jaren said in an attempt to catch Karura off guard for once.

"Please, Jaren, don't encourage her," Touka groaned. Jaren set down his mug with a laugh and patted the Evinkuruga woman on the shoulder. "It's been much too long since I've been able to relax like this," Jaren said happily. "But, I'm afraid we have to get moving again if we're to reach the capital tonight."

"Leaving already, young commander?" Gild had finished trading post-game remarks with the group that had been watching their game, and returned to his seat. "Afraid so, sir," Kyr said, emerging from a crowd of women that seemed intent on following him wherever he moved. Lynia carefully edged around the throng with a half-amused, half-irritated expression to rejoin the group. Gild took the time to shake hands with Jaren a final time before moving off with the group of onlookers to have an energetic discussion on the finer points of the game they had just watched.

"Sorry to put you to work while the rest of us fooled around, Lynia," Jaren said as she said goodbye to Gild and came up and took a seat next to Kyr. Lynia waved off his concern disinterestedly. "It's fine, Jaren, you of all people know how I am in these sorts of settings. Besides, I like dealing with the families," she said matter-of-factly. "Not all of us get to be swarmed by the more attractive locals," she added with a decidedly not gentle prod to Kyr's chest.

"As they say, all good things must come to an end," Kyr said. He rubbed the spot she had poked him in with a grimace. "Still, I'd trade it all if I could find someone like Jaren did," he said with a thoughtful look on his face. Jaren shook his head.

"If only you knew. I haven't seen her in over two and a half years at this point. That's the entire length of my career so far! I'm not sure you understand just how difficult it's been. Remember Nethe, from our stay in Noseshechika?"

"The archer from Second Team? I remember her, the woman could shoot," Kyr said. "Didn't hurt that she was beautiful, mind you."

"That makes explaining this easier, then. She liked me."

"I could've told you that, Jaren," Lynia said dryly. "She took every opportunity she could to sit with you whenever we ate, and I remember her talking to you almost all the time."

"No. Besides that. I mean, she really, really liked me," Jaren said putting as much emphasis on the word "really" as he could. "Nethe came by my room after the operation was finished and we were scheduled to separate from Second Team. Everyone else was asleep at that point, as far as I knew, and the only reason I was up was that I wanted to readjust my armor shirt and my blades needed to be sharpened and oiled."

Jaren paused to prop his chin up against one of his hands. "So there I am, sitting on my bed in only my uniform shirt and pants, messing around with the plate rivets when I hear a quiet knock on the door. If anything, I was expecting it to be Captain Treyar with some last minute update or just checking to see how things were going. Imagine my surprise when I see a beautiful woman I barely recognize as Nethe step through the door wearing a dress. I was surprised because I had never seen what she looked like out of uniform." He paused again, staring blankly at no place in particular. "Well, come on then, don't keep us waiting," Kyr said impatiently. Lynia backhanded him on the arm lightly and motioned for him to be quiet. Jaren shook his head before continuing.

"Without a word, it looked like to me as if she had glided across the room and sat down next to me. I'm already a bit worried as to what's happening, and then she ends up wrapping her arms around my shoulders and leaning into my chest. Then, Nethe tells me in the smallest voice I've ever heard from her that she had fallen for me, and that she would stay the night with me. She got about halfway to undoing the sash holding her dress closed before I put my hands on hers to stop her from doing anything more. I told her that while I was happy that she felt that way, I couldn't go any further because I already was waiting for someone. That has to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life so far. First Division selection and training was nothing compared to the mental agony I had to go through to make that decision. Remember, it's been over two years since I've been this close to a woman, let alone one who says she's in love with me and is offering to spend the night in my bed."

"I'm agonizing over what I'm about to do at this point, but I figured it was the only way I could get out of the situation without losing all sense of self-worth in myself as a man who keeps to his word. I apologized and kissed her on the forehead after a couple of minutes passed without either of us saying anything," Jaren said with a sad look on his face. "She looks up at me and I see tears running down her face. Still, she said absolutely nothing, she just ended up holding me tighter while crying, the whole time not making a single sound. That's the only thing I regret about that whole incident," Jaren said looking up at the group of them listening to his story. "I never thought I would have to make Nethe cry like that because I did the right thing. Like I said, the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Jaren leaned forward against his hand and sighed. "She left after a few minutes, and I ended up staring at the door for who knows how long before readjusting my armor and maintaining my weapons to try and take my mind off the whole thing. That was a miserable failure seeing as I ended up staring at the ceiling and unable to sleep until a couple of hours before sunrise. The last time I saw her was early next morning. We were leaving at first light, and I remember her quietly coming out of the inn as we were about to leave. She was back in her uniform, but she seemed to me like she had the night before. I went over to her, and the only thing she said was 'Goodbye, Jaren,' and then kissed me on the cheek before backing away to see us off."

"I saw that much, but I didn't think it was a continuation of something else," Lynia said with a surprised tone of voice. Kyr nodded in agreement. "You should have said something Jaren, you know you can tell me about these kinds of things," Lynia said in a gentle voice than neither Touka nor Karura had heard her use before.

"I know, but it was all I could do to not just stop for a week and just get over it. I had a hard enough time poring over the incident in my head, and I just wasn't ready to talk about it with anyone," Jaren said. "I see," Lynia replied. The group sat quietly for a few moments, taking in what Jaren had told them.

Kyr was the first to break the silence. "I think I take back whatever I've said about you being lucky with women. That sounds to me to be anything but," he said. Jaren looked up with half-grin. "Oh, I'm lucky alright. It's just that for now at least I need to pay my dues for being fortunate enough." He stood up from his seat and pulled the hat he had carefully tucked into one of his coat's epaulets to unfold and straighten it before placing it back on his head.

"We should get moving. Let's go pay our respects to the elder and get going," Jaren said after he was satisfied with the placement of his hat. Lynia and Kyr got up from their seats and did the same. "You two can wait here if you like," he called over his shoulder as they started across the room.

Karura and Touka looked at one another, still seated. "What do you think?" Karura had asked the question in an undertone. Touka looked back at her companion. "I think he's been through more than he lets on," she finally answered. "He's a lot like you, in that way."

"Maybe," Karura said with a grin. "I suppose I should let up on the flirting a bit."

"Really? I wonder what led you to that conclusion," Touka said, completely unimpressed. Jaren and his teammates returned from saying their farewells to the elder, as well as stopping for a handshake between Jaren and Gild, and a few exchanges of farewell between Kyr and his well-wishers. "Everyone ready? We need to get a move on."

"All ready, oh capturer of young maidens' hearts," Karura said airily. She wrapped herself around Jaren's left arm as before, this time with a speed that prevented anyone from doing anything about it. "So much for your resolution," Touka said huffily. Karura stuck her tongue out slightly at the straitlaced swordswoman.

"I get the feeling that I missed something here," Jaren said as he looked at the pair's exchange quizzically.

"It's better if you don't know," Touka said brusquely and walked out the tavern door. "I get the feeling she's right," Lynia said, trailing after the woman. Kyr held his hands up defensively. "Don't look at me, I wouldn't know."

"Never a dull moment with you, I see," Jaren said to Karura. "Shall we go, or will I need to drag you and my arm along?" Karura simply smiled and loosened her grip on his arm, pulling him along by the hand as she walked towards the outside.

"Never a dull moment indeed," Jaren thought to himself with an inward smile as they continued on their way to the capital while the sun finished setting and the evening sky began to emerge.


	4. Chapter 4: Reunions

Chapter Four: Reunions

"Capital's in sight, Jaren," Kyr called from ahead of the group. They had been walking uphill for some time time now, as the path Jaren had chosen was off of the usual paths frequented by merchant carts. Kyr was at the top of the current incline they were walking up, and looked surprisingly energetic for someone who had been carrying such a heavy pack and setting a brisk pace for the rest of the group. Touka could feel that her legs would be at least a bit sore the following morning, and she felt rather fortunate that it was her habit to travel light with just her sword, the clothes she was wearing, and the small pouch she carried her money and other small valuables in. Of course, looking over to her other companions, they didn't appear too encumbered by their respective heavy loads. The members of the Free Company looked accustomed to carrying their heavy packs over any terrain, and Karura's unparalleled strength made it unlikely in Touka's mind that she felt burdened in the slightest.

When they caught up to Kyr, they were treated to a spectacular view of the capital and the surrounding land. It was now evening, and the contrast between the faint lights of the torches around the castle itself, the lights coming from the inns, taverns, and other shops still open, and the stars above made a very picturesque scene. Jaren and the others took a brief drink from their waterskins as they took in the sight. Jaren offered his to Karura, who declined with a shake of her head. "Water, ma'am?" Lynia held her own waterskin out. "Oh, thank you," Touka said as she politely took a drink. As she returned the waterskin, she noticed Jaren remove his pack and place it on the ground carefully. He rubbed at his right shoulder with a wince, turning his head to the right as he did so. Lynia noticed as well. "Is your shoulder acting up again, Jaren?"

Jaren nodded. "Must be the fighting we did earlier today plus the marching with packs, I think," he said as he rubbed at his shoulder for a few more moments before shouldering his pack again. "I'll help you out with it once we reach the capital and get settled in," Lynia said as they started marching again.

"Could you? I appreciate it," Jaren said. "It's nothing. If I didn't help take care of you, who knows what state you'd find yourself in," Lynia said in the tone they had her use earlier when Jaren had apologized for leaving her to act as a public mediator back in the tavern. "I still remember you bleeding all over the place in Noseshechika after you tried to dodge that assassin and he caught you in the forehead with his dagger."

"What can I say? He was taller and stronger than most, so the normal way I dodge turned out to be not as effective. It was a real bother to have to keep my left eye all bandaged up with the rest of the cut though. Scar's still visible, I think," he said, unconsciously rubbing at a spot above his left eye. Touka twisted her head to take a look, and sure enough there was a faint white line tracing diagonally upwards visible under the moonlight.

"You've fought hard, as expected of an Anterei," Touka offered. Jaren shook his head with a smile and a wave of his hand. "You should see some of my relatives. My uncle Tellis Strasert is missing half of his left arm after a particularly unlucky ballista bolt, that's something like Kyr's weapon but significantly larger, caught him in the elbow. He's doing alright, considering. The man paints now, quite well in my opinion. All those years with the sword really did wonders for his coordination, and his eyes haven't dulled a bit."

"Your mother, Ayiri, too," Lynia said. "She's got quite the scar over her left eye, just like Jaren's but worse and more permanent. She can't see too well out of her left eye anymore," she said for the benefit of Touka and Karura.

"Ayiri? The name sounds unusual, and I notice you didn't mention her surname. It sounds as if she is not from Anterei," Touka queried with interest.

"Very perceptive of you," Jaren said. "You're right, she's not. My mother Ayiri is not of Anterei blood. She's Evinkuruga." He paused to let Karura and Touka digest this bit of information. Karura raised an eyebrow but otherwise made no sign of surprise. Touka's eyes grew especially wide. "Let me say, however, that I'm not half-Evinkuruga. I don't carry any more of their blood than what has been passed down from Anterei and Melian's children, our ancestors."

"Then... you were adopted by her?"

"Correct again! She was very good friends with my blood mother and father, and when they died on the battlefield she petitioned the Strasert elders to raise me as her own. They accepted on the condition that I keep the Strasert name, as they had just lost two of their own and couldn't stand to lose a third. She agreed, and I became her son."

"Ah. For a moment there, I thought you were going to tell me she was saved by your father, fell in love with him and bore his children. I let my imagination run wild there, that almost never happens, and the only example almost anyone can recall is Anterei and Melian," Touka laughed nervously as she spoke.

"Oh, but she did," Jaren said, blinking. Touka abruptly stopped laughing and walked with her mouth slightly open. "Not with my father, but with a man from the Belian line, Jesiah Belian. He was friends with my blood mother and father since childhood, and Ayiri knew that he would've raised me as his own if he hadn't died in the same battle with them. Jesiah met her completely on accident when they were both pursuing the same outlaw group, and she was saved by him when he rescued her from a rather sordid fate when they managed to disarm and restrain her. From what I've been told, they got along extremely well and their relationship progressed quite fast. They had only been together for a year before they had a child together, my elder sister Iruno."

"Only a year?! But that means that..." Touka trailed off as she blushed bright red and her voice was reduced to a flustered garble. Jaren scratched his head, wearing a sheepish smile on his features. "Like I said, fast."

"A storied romance by the sound of it," Karura said cheerfully as she followed them with a marked bounce in her step.

"My, aren't you the entertained one, Karura," Lynia remarked. Karura looked over her shoulder at the laconic scout with an impish smile. "Only when things are this interesting." Lynia rolled her eyes but refrained from saying anything further.

"Sorry if that story made you uncomfortable," Jaren said, lightly placing a hand on Touka's shoulder to try and steady her nerves. The Evinkuruga woman jumped away with a barely suppressed yelp, and realizing what she had just done continued to flush a bright shade of red. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make light of the bond!" This time Jaren was the one looking embarrassed.

"There you go again with the unfamiliar terms. Mind filling me in on what Anterei-Evinkuruga folklore I'm missing out on now?" Karura had wedged herself in between Jaren and Touka to try and calm them down long enough to get some answers.

"Ah, yes, right away!" Jaren cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to compose himself. Karura heard Lynia snicker slightly and a quiet snort from Kyr. "The idea of 'the bond' refers to Anterei and Melian's relationship as noted in The Chronicles, Anterei's record of almost everything involving our people since the time of Anterei, as well as in popular tales. Melian is said to have fallen in love with Anterei because he fought alongside her as an equal, and was able to defeat her in a duel shortly after they first met, which had never happened to the skilled swordswoman before. Anyway, 'the bond' these days refers to the notion that a Evinkuruga woman who sees or fights with or against an Anterei man at a level that's equal to hers or even higher will be almost irreversibly attracted to him."

Jaren glanced over at Touka for a moment, who was still embarrassed judging from her fixed stare directed at the road at her feet. "There's also another story that explains her attraction that involves Anterei getting her out of a rather... compromising situation, but I think I'll leave that for another time to spare Touka any further embarrassment today," he said, evidently choosing his words very carefully as he watched Touka for any change in expression. "It's an apocryphal one not officially recorded in The Chronicles, but it's a popular story that gets passed around by Third Division as it deals with their own founder Rielle."

"Oh? You'll have to tell me that one sometime," Karura said as she alternately beamed a smile at Jaren and Touka. Touka snapped her head up and fixed a wide-eyed stare at Jaren as she shook her head vigorously. Karura pretended not to see her energetic effort as she continued to speak. "I learned the basics of Anterei's lore a long time ago, but it would seem I never got to hear the especially interesting bits. It's not often a people have stories that aren't boring at all."

"The children of Anterei and Melian for you," Jaren said drolly. "With parents like that, who would expect anything else? Our history even when we're nominally at peace hardly lets up in terms of the various adventures and mayhem various generations of Anterei have found themselves experiencing. I don't think we're any exception," Jaren said, making a gesture to indicate himself, Lynia, and Kyr. "If you hate boring stories, I should introduce you to my extended family. With Straserts on one side and Belins on the other, there's almost no end to them."

"You mentioned the Kern line being famous, but both sides of your family are famous as well, then?" Karura cocked her head slightly as she asked the question.

"I wouldn't say as famous as the Kerns, but they've both made a fair showing in The Chronicles. The Belins are a bit more illustrious than the Straserts, as well, at least in terms of prestige. The Straserts are more known for being unique or otherwise unusual compared to most famous Anterei lineages. They may not have had as many distinguished members when it comes to military heroes as the Belins, but nearly everyone knows all the stories with the Straserts better. I suppose you could say they have a tendency to turn out a bit more wild than the Belins."

"You seem normal enough to me," Karura said bluntly, although with a smile.

"Thanks, I suppose. Probably the result of an unusual upbringing."

"Unusual how?"

"I'd say that being raised by an Evinkuruga mother but retaining the Strasert name, having relatives from both Strasert and Belin constantly visiting and mentoring me, and growing up with no knowledge of either of my blood parents counts as unusual." He was silent for a time as they walked on, but looked back at Karura with a smile only a few moments later. "You could say that's my Strasert nature at work, even if it's completely out of my control. Fate seems to act very peculiarly around us no matter what the circumstances of the time or place we find ourselves living in."

"I'd have to agree, even though all I can go on is what you've told me just this day since we met. If the rest of your life is as interesting as what you've already told me, I can see where this idea of the Straserts being unusual comes from." Jaren shrugged as they continued walking, their boots making slight scuffing noises as the dirt grew rockier.

"What about Lynia and Kyr? Are they from famous lineages too?" The two perked up at hearing Karura ask about them.

"Come on, you two," Jaren said with a wave. "I've known you two for what seems like an eternity now, but you should still probably answer that yourselves."

"Sure, I'll humor you, Jaren," Lynia said half-heartedly. "The Milthas name isn't the most prestigious, but we're respectable enough and can trace our lineage within five generations of The Fracturing when the land Anterei was lost. Both my parents are artisans; my father is a blacksmith and my mother is a jewelery maker. I also live with my grandmother, who I suppose you could say is my inspiration and why I'm here slogging through the dirt and the mud with these two instead of sitting around comfortably back at home making a good living creating jewelry for rich ladies to show off." Kyr and Jaren both chuckled quietly, Lynia shooting a displeased look their way as they did before continuing with her story.

"I grew up being very close to my grandmother and listening to her amazing stories of what she saw and did with First Division in her younger days. Grandmother doesn't really look the part anymore, but apparently she was quite the firebrand both on and off the battlefield in her younger days. She always told me to never accept any limits anyone tried to place on me, including ones I placed on myself. When she figured I was old enough, she started teaching me things she had learned over the years as a soldier. By the time most girls were busy doting on boys who caught their fancy, I could fight a stronger, taller man and win nearly every time. I would've been a total social outcast if it wasn't for all the friends of my grandmother and the daughters of my mother's friends being around so often, and giving me something else to busy myself with besides the training. I remember that time happily because I was always learning how to do something, whether it was how to fight, to track animals or people in the forest, to sing, to dance, to paint.

"I met these two troublemakers when I underwent the militia training all children born into Anterei undergo after they turn sixteen. We were placed into the same team because we were from the same area, although we had never met before except in passing. We were something of a legend in our training cohort, and I don't mean to exaggerate at all. I already knew how to fight quite well before showing up, and the lessons and drills we went through only sharpened my skills further. While others were still learning the basics, the instructors were refining my advanced skills and teaching me things that put me far and away beyond the other trainees.

"Kyr's always been able to out march, out run, and out carry anyone else we've known, so his being on our team was undoubtedly a great help. His vision and hearing are superb, and he's an amazing shot with any kind of missile weapon. The first day we trained in shooting slings and arrows he managed to thoroughly impress all the other trainees and the instructors as well. That helped a lot, seeing as he was on rather friendly terms with some of them, and even Sergeant-Instructor Holg, the sternest, most grizzled soldier we'd ever seen and who would tear you apart verbally for the smallest mistake never had much to say. Kyr had a bad habit of flirting with the other female trainees though, and ended up causing his fair share of problems that way. He did make up for it though; there were a few incidents where he managed to sweet-talk some of the younger female instructors into giving us some extra rations, which we were grateful for, seeing as Kyr's got an appetite to match his endurance. Thankfully, he could also hunt and fish like a master, so we never really went hungry thanks to Kyr's efforts in one thing or another.

"Jaren... well, Jaren was always in his own league thanks to his upbringing, as he mentioned earlier. It really was a sight to see, Jaren fighting seemingly effortlessly, switching between his Evinkuruga-taught forms, to variations of the Belin's accumulated fighting knowledge, and the free-flowing and unpredictable style preferred by the Straserts. He could outfight any of the trainees including me, and all but a handful of our instructors except the most experienced ones, and even they freely admitted that the difference in their abilities were so slight it was frightening considering his young age. Jaren also excelled when the time came for any kind of stealth, pursuit, or tracking exercises. No one ever managed to spot Jaren unless he wanted them to, and he had this disturbing way of just disappearing and appearing seemingly at will whenever he was out of sight for more than a few moments.

"They started calling him 'Wraith' after one exercise lasting ten days where he absolutely terrorized the other groups involved. We were all left in the woods with a minimum of supplies and told to fend for ourselves until the instructors came for us. They let us form alliances or act independently as teams as we wished. We were also supposed to try and steal the other teams' supplies and the bundles we all were issued that represented critical maps or important objects we were to protect, and stop them from doing the same to us. By the end of the fourth night, Jaren here managed to scare enough of the teams away from certain areas of the woods that were great hunting and fishing spots so that they were basically ours for the rest of the exercise."

"I remember that," Jaren said with a crooked smile. "The first day I went to sleep in the late afternoon and woke up a couple of hours before midnight so I could get ready. I painted my face white and black to look like some kind of monster or demon and skulked about the woods looking for other team members. Alone, in groups, I wasn't picky. Some of them I surprised by coming out of bushes and groaning, or I'd cover myself in leaves and lay belly down until the time was right and I'd rise up dramatically hissing 'Deathhhhhhh!' After the first two nights when the stories had spread, I didn't even really need to show myself much, just run around the woods screaming and yelling like a madman, or following the more persistent teams around and giving them all sorts of dire warnings. I left some of them dead fish all around their campsite that they found when they came back, and a couple of times I dropped these rough-looking effigies I made out of sticks into their campfires at night when they were about to go to sleep. Kyr had helped me make some pitch earlier in the week, and we coated them so they flared up quite nicely when dropped into an open fire."

Lynia frowned in disapproval as Jaren kept smiling. "I worry about you sometimes, you're such a sadist with these things."

Jaren ignored her and continued his account. "I think my favorite part of that whole thing was when I ended up stalking this one trainee named Githere. The man was a real proud type: old lineage, military family, the tall, strong, and cocky type who didn't take 'no' for an answer."

"Also, a tremendously arrogant bastard, excuse me ma'am," Kyr added, bowing his head apologetically towards Touka, who at this point had recovered from her embarrassed state and was listening attentively to the story.

"Also very true. Githere had formed an alliance of seven teams at the very start of the exercise, and they had been doing well enough until they started crossing our little domain on the second day. It was mainly his alliance members that bore the brunt of my more creative stunts, the dead fish and the effigies being some of them. Didn't take too long before I had scared the wits out of some of them, and the alliance started showing signs of strain. Githere always thought of himself as a natural-born leader, and took it upon himself to dispel all the rumors of mysterious monsters lurking about the woods at night. The only problem was that Kyr had been spying on him and his alliance mates all day, and by the time I woke up after nightfall had told me everything I needed to know."

"Well? Tell us what happened next," Touka said excitedly. She seemed engaged enough with the story not to notice the smirk Karura directed her way, focusing all her attention on Jaren instead.

"I'm getting there," Jaren said with a smile. "Now, as much as I disliked Githere, and I still dislike him, I will give him credit for being at least somewhat charismatic. He managed to coax, berate, or otherwise intimidate two of the other teams who weren't scared completely out of their minds of our little area in the woods to accompany him and his own personal team out on an expedition of sorts. Problem was, they were already on edge, having been party to my little performances before, so by the time I began shadowing them and purposely stepping on dry twigs and scuffing my feet through leaves they were a real mess. It only took maybe half an hour of that before everyone but Githere's own team had scurried off for the safety of their main camp. I had made a point of never going near their camp, and they had picked up on that fact earlier. The idea behind that was that I was hoping by giving them a safe haven they wouldn't feel as desperate as if I had harassed them no matter where they went."

"It worked, too," Kyr said. "Jaren always turned back right as they crossed this one ridge near a stream. They caught on to that fact quick, and it helped because we always knew they would go that direction at the first sign of anything seemingly supernatural."

"That was the critical part of our plan for the last night there," Lynia said, coming back into the conversation after letting Jaren tell his portion of the tale. "Githere was still not convinced about there being some kind of supernatural being in the forest, but without any backup he was forced to turn back and try to take control of his alliance. We didn't mind at all, as we just wanted to keep him out of the area until we were ready to put our plan into motion. All of us ended up sleeping for most of the tenth day in a cave that was in the center of the territory we had carved out for ourselves. Right as night fell we woke up, ate, and readied ourselves for what was to come.

"The plan was simple and brutally efficient: I would pretend to be heavily injured and have Kyr carry me into the area Githere and his alliance members had made camp in. Kyr would come up with a wild story about how we had been in hiding for the entire exercise, and just found our way into the neighboring area to forage for supplies and wait out the tenth day until the instructors came to collect us and evaluate our performance at the end of the exercise. Little did we know, the story would go, that there was something already there, and that it wasn't happy we had set foot in its lair. While Jaren and Kyr were gone the creature had ambushed and wounded me badly. When they arrived, Jaren screamed out for Kyr to take me to safety while he delayed the monster, and would then try to escape and regroup with us. As the situation had turned out so badly, the decision was to go into Githere's area and trade our critical map and object bundles for protection, the results of the exercise being irrelevant with our team members hurt and in grave danger.

"When Kyr dragged me into Githere's main camp, covered in dried blood we had collected from trapped animals we had slaughtered earlier that night, they didn't need to hear the story twice. They left Kyr to watch over me, and all of them charged over into the place where we had told them Jaren was fighting off the creature. I think Githere really enjoyed the idea of being able to save Jaren from a situation he couldn't handle himself, probably so he could lord it over him later. It'd also make a good story for him to tell after militia training was over, how he saved the famed Jaren Strasert from certain doom.

"Well, I imagine he was in for quite the shock when they hit the treeline. Right before we had left, I had lit a slow-burning fuse that was connected to a series of trenches and pits we had spent two days to set up. Kyr and I had spent quite some time gathering all the materials needed for it, Kyr spending a lot of time making pitch and myself refining some substances out of rocks and plants in the area. I mentioned I spent a lot of time learning things from my mother's friends and their daughters, right? One of them was an apothecary, and the things I had learned from her came in very useful for what we did. Certain substances when added to flame cause it to burn a different color. I had ground these into powder and placed them in little pouches we made out of tree bark and twigs. We strung those up in the trees a little higher than eye level, and I had mixed the bulk of the powder for blue fire with pine needles and dry bark that we placed all along the trenches. They were all connected to that slow-burning fuse we had lit earlier, and it was all soaked with pitch.

"We heard later that when the fuse caught, they were right in the middle of it looking for Jaren. Imagine being suddenly surrounded by a ring of leaping blue flames while balls of green, red, and purple fire dance all around. That's what Githere's alliance saw, and they absolutely panicked. As far as we heard, they ended up sprinting all the way back to their camp only to find Kyr and I missing, an enormous pool of blood-soaked dirt, and three flaming effigies burning in their main fire. Now until then, nothing had ever bothered them in their little safe haven, so to suddenly have that rule broken after seeing the colored flame spectacle was too much. They scattered all over the training area and hid until the instructors rounded us all up the next morning. Even then, they were all trying to convince the instructors they should send out an armed search party for us, only to be laughed off and told to wait and see.

"You should have seen their faces at the assembly area when all three of us were standing at the center of it with far and away the biggest pile of map and object bundles out of anyone there. We were tired, dirty, and I was still reeking of dried animal blood, but we somehow managed to smile as they stared at us in shock. In the panic after they had all reached their campsite, Jaren had circled around to meet up with us in our hiding spot a short distance south, and we all ran back to grab their bundles before running nonstop for almost an hour south to what was probably the worst spot in the entire training area. After a short break, we buried all of the bundles we had taken and spent the rest of the night raiding any camps we could find for their bundles if they still had them. As the sun started coming up, some of the instructors found us and we led them to the burial site so we could gather all of our ill-gained loot and bring it back to the assembly area. There was only one team that had made it back earlier than us, although we definitely had more collected more bundles than they had."

"Not like they were really competing with us, anyways," Jaren added. "They weren't exactly at the top of the cohort, but they were still a respectable distance away from the bulk of the other teams. We were on good terms with them though, so we went over to shake hands and spent the time waiting for everyone else to show up swapping stories and congratulating one another on making it out still in possession of our own bundles and taking some from other teams too. One of them had some smoked fish meat she had dried early on in the exercise that they never ended up eating, so we sat around chewing on that while we all talked about what we would do first thing when we went back to barracks for the final week of militia training."

"I ate," Kyr said cheerfully. "After all that running and fighting I had really worked up quite an appetite."

"Ah yes, I seem to remember the cooks wondering if it was alright to give you any more when you came up to them for the fourth time with an empty tray," Lynia said, rolling her eyes. "After the instructors had assembled everyone together, they tallied up our bundles, and congratulated us for being the highest scoring team of our cohort and as far back as any of the instructors present could recall. Sergeant-Instructor Holg even told us he'd buy us all drinks after we were finished with training, and sure enough the first thing he did at the party after we finished was to buy the three of us a round of drinks." She smiled brightly. "I remember my mother and father being so surprised when that happened; the most grizzled-looking, weather-bitten soldier in the room was buying their daughter a drink and complimenting her on her performance in the culminating field exercise! I think they had an idea that I could handle myself, but they certainly didn't expect it to be to that extent. Grandmother just laughed and said something to Holg that I couldn't make out but actually made him smile."

"Other than that, I think that's the only story worth having me tell instead of either of these two," Lynia said. "Let's move on along down the line and get to Kyr."

"I'm not sure if there's all that much for me to tell, honestly," Kyr said modestly. "I grew up in a fair-sized town maybe two or three miles away from the area Lynia and Jaren lived, in a spectacularly normal family. My father is a carpenter, and my mother is a seamstress. Neither of them had a military background either, and as far as anyone could've guessed it looked like I was going to follow suit. The only thing that really helped pull me in that direction was the fact that I love being outdoors and had ever since I was old enough to run and climb trees."

"Come on, now," Lynia said jocularly. "There were other reasons, I'm sure. Wasn't it you who said that you weren't ready to settle down during the prime years of your youth?"

"How in the name of the ancestors do you manage to remember these things?" The question was phrased with some anger, but the fact that Kyr was blushing at the same time took the impact out of it. "I was drunk when I said that. Besides, I can't believe you remember that, weren't all of us amazingly drunk?"

"Ah, so you admit that's a reason you joined up then!" Lynia had a smile on her face that was between teasing and devious. Kyr attempted to respond, but was stuck at the first step of getting words to come out of his mouth in an audible fashion.

"You're an absolute demon of a woman sometimes," Jaren said with an amused shake of the head. Lynia threw her head back and let out a loud unrestrained laugh. "Still, I'm impressed you remember that too. As Kyr said, we all did have a lot to drink that night. I'm surprised that I personally can remember anything from then."

"I always did handle drink better than all of you," Lynia gloated. "I was drunk though, that much is right, but not to the point where I would forget things."

"We must have some drinks together, then," Karura said airily. Touka made a concerned noise in the back of her throat. "I wouldn't if I were you, she's got an inhuman tolerance for liquor,"she said, frowning.

"There'll be plenty of time for that later, we're almost there," Kyr said. The group looked up, and sure enough they had reached the outskirts of the capital city. Thinking back, Touka realized that they had been talking for quite some time, and they had already seen the city itself when they had reached the top of the incline previously.

Going through the streets, they drew the attention of the city dwellers like they had earlier in the day at the border village. Jaren was particularly active in replying politely to the greetings of well-wishers and diplomatically replying to any questions directed their way. Several of the merchants waved enthusiastically to Karura and Touka, recognizing familiar faces that had been away for a while. Touka couldn't be sure, but she swore that she saw one of the local liquor merchants grinning madly as he darted back into his storefront upon seeing Karura.

Finally reaching the castle gates, they were briefly stopped by the captain of the guard, who let them in easily upon seeing Touka and Karura accompanying the new arrivals. He accompanied them up to the main meeting hall, a familiar sight for both Touka and Karura in days gone by. Inside, Benawi was already waiting for them, seated in front of the throne that now belonged to Oboro, although it was vacant at the moment. Touka thought he looked a bit out of place, dressed in loosely fitting ceremonial robes rather than the closer-fitting simple garb he had worn as leader of Tusukuru's military forces. Another man about the same age was seated to the front and left of Benawi along the side of the floor covering that led to the throne. He was dressed similarly to the rest of the Free Company members, except that his uniform seemed a touch more formal than the rest. Resting on the ground next to him was a sheathed sword. He stood up in a fluid motion upon seeing the group enter, and he walked over to clasp hands with Jaren, Lynia, and Kyr in turn.

"Glad to see Fifth Team in good health," he said. "No problems along the way?"

"Nothing bigger than a brief scuffle with some rowdy locals after these two, Captain," Jaren said, indicating Touka and Karura. "They warranted some wounding here and there, but nothing too serious."

"Well, I'd probably be a little more upset if we weren't trying to spread rumors about our presence. Ah, but where are my manners, Regent Benawi, I'd like to introduce my subordinates from the Free Company's Fifth Team. I present First Sergeant Jaren Strasert, Leading Sergeant Lynia Milthas, and Sergeant Kyr Ilvos." As he indicated each one of them, they stepped forward and bowed to Benawi, who acknowledged them all with a polite bow of the head.

"Welcome to our land. As already mentioned, your Captain informed me of the plan to pass through a border village and let the people know of your presence. I trust that went well?"

"We got into a fight along the way, but I think overall the rumors that will spread as a result outweigh the harm we did. We were careful not to inflict any permanent injuries," Jaren said. "Our appearance in the border village went as well as could be hoped for. The villagers took the news that their men wouldn't be called up and left to defend their homes instead went over quite well."

"Excellent, I hope to keep the populace's morale high throughout the coming months," Benawi said, relieved. "The soldiers of the Capital Guard are one thing, but the people are not so conditioned to deal with hardships brought about by fighting."

"For what it's worth, I can give you my word my people will do everything they can to prevent that," Treyar spoke up. "Although I've only asked the Fifth Team to be here with me at present, I have already requested additional reinforcements to join us as fast as they can. Additionally, several other teams are already in place around Tusukuru's borders to interdict any supplies or reinforcements the threat may send here. Gods and ancestors willing, they'll help stem the flow of men and war materials to an amount that we can definitely handle."

"I leave it in your hands, then," Benawi replied. "The Capital Guard is at your disposal for any assistance you may need."

"My thanks, Regent," Treyar said with a bow. "At this time, I can say that we will need a small supplementary group to bolster our strength. We will most likely run a selection process on a cohort of men who are recommended by their officers, the current military leader, or who can pass a skills and fitness screening."

"I'll have the current military leader himself speak with you first thing tomorrow morning to arrange for it, as well as have him give you any personal recommendations he has," Benawi said, standing up from his seat. "Until then, let's conclude any official business for now." He walked to where Touka and Karura were standing off to the side in the hall. "There are some who can barely wait any longer to see the two of you," Benawi said to them with a smirk. "After all, you've been away for quite some time. Come on out, you three!"

"Karura! Touka!" The voice belonged to an extremely fast-moving blur of silver hair and black feathers that collided with Touka and knocked her to the ground. Karura had managed to step out of the way and smiled a rather smug smile at the tangled mass of limbs and feathers next to her.

"Ouch," Touka said with a grimace as she sat up. "Kamyu, is that you?" With a flap of her black wings, the girl jumped up cheerfully. "That's right, Touka! Long time no see, huh?" Touka got to her feet and carefully looked her over. She had grown taller in the year since they were gone, and she could see that she had been growing out her silver hair as well.

"Are you alright, Touka?" The concerned voice that made itself heard was Eruruu coming around the doorway that Kamyu had so quickly burst through. She seemed taller as well, although her hair was more or less the same way it had been before she had left. Aruruu followed her older sister into the room closely. She was looking more and more like Eruruu now, although she still seemed quiet as ever.

"Hey, come on, say something," Eruruu urged. "They've been gone for a year now, so the least you could do is greet them."

Aruruu looked at them blankly. "Welcome back," she said simply. Karura strolled over and placed a hand on her head. "Thank you very much, young lady," Karura said as she smiled and tousled the young girl's hair playfully.

"Welcome back, you two," Eruruu and Kamyu said together. Touka and Kaura smiled at the trio and at each other. It was good to be back home.


	5. Chapter 5: Disclosure

Author's Note:

I had some blather here about me being late with this installment, etc. Accidentally deleted it but it's not all that important. Thanks for the reviews, alerts, favorites, and views everyone, really means a lot.

Some minor revisions were made in this chapter, as well as chapter 4; I noticed recently that I had described Treyar's uniform twice, and in different ways each time. My fault for throwing in so much descriptive detail of stuff. Hopefully the corrections make this a lot less confusing.

Chapter Five: Disclosure

Touka felt more at peace than she had for quite some time, finally being back in Tusukuru, the place that was closest to home outside of the village in Evinkuruga lands she had left long ago. She glanced down at Aruruu, who had dozed off with her head in Karura's lap as the princess turned mercenary chatted happily with Eruruu and Kamyu as they drank tea. The two had grown physically, but they seemed otherwise the same as the day she had left to Touka's eyes. Smiling at the thought, she turned her head to gaze out over the balcony they were sitting on. A short distance away, torches flickered and bobbed up and down as the sentries carrying them marched about the castle grounds. Further away, the lights of the city could be seen, the liveliness of the city's residents carrying on into the night, although at a quieter volume.

"...so after that, we ended up having to take the girl back to her parents soaking wet!" Eruruu finished the story she had been relating to Karura with a tired sigh. The older woman smiled and laughed softly, attempting to not disturb Aruruu. Kamyu looked over at Touka curiously.

"What's wrong Touka? You've been awfully quiet for a little while now."

"Oh? I'm sorry, I was just thinking it's wonderful to be home again," Touka said, pausing to take a sip of her tea. "Gone a whole year, and it's like we never left."

"That's what going home should be like, I think," a voice called from the nearby doorway. They looked in the direction of the voice to see Lynia leaning with her back against the wall near the door. "I hope I'm not disturbing you all."

"Oh, not at all," Eruruu said, politely getting up from her seat. "My name is Eruruu, I'm a physician here at the castle. It's nice to meet you."

"I'm Kamyu!" The Onkami Yamukai girl leaped up with a slight flap of her wings. "I'm here with my sister Urutorii as part of the Onkami Yamukai's delegation."

"Pleased to meet you," Lynia said with a nod. "I'm Leading Sergeant Lynia Milthas, but please, just call me Lynia."

"Leading Sergeant? Are you a soldier then, Lynia?" Eruruu looked at her, intrigued. "I didn't know there were women soldiers outside of what I've heard about Noseshechika."

"Oh, you've heard about Noseshechika's Home Guard, I see. But yes, I'm a soldier of sorts. Sorry to change the subject, but the Captain sent me up here to ask Touka to accompany me," she said apologetically Eruruu.

"For me? What for?" The Evinkuruga woman stood up as she asked.

"Well, there's going to be a small military ceremony. The Captain just announced it, I didn't even know until just now. We'd be honored if you'd join us for it," Lynia said.

"Oh! Of course, I will go then," Touka said with a hint of embarrassment.

"If you like, you can come with Touka and I," Lynia said to Eruruu and Kamyu, pretending not to notice Touka's slight discomfort.

"Are you sure? We don't want to bother you, it sounds important," Eruruu said. Lynia held a hand up and waved it dismissively. "There's no bother at all, I'm sure it's not every day you get to see something like this anyways. Think of it as a learning opportunity."

"Let's go then, Eruruu!" Kamyu didn't give off the impression of hesitating in the slightest as she tugged on Eruruu's arm slightly in the direction of the doorway. Aruruu stirred slightly, waking on account of all the commotion.

"Where's everyone going?" She rubbed her eyes drowsily as she sat up from her spot on Karura's lap. "Some kind of ceremony, young lady," Karura said. "Think you can stay awake long enough to go?"

Aruruu stood up and shook her head to clear it, and nodded energetically. "Well, let's go then," Lynia said waggishly. "The Captain should have an interesting look on his face when I bring the lot of you in as an audience." She led them to one of the smaller audience halls where Jaren was standing at a rigid position of attention in front of their solemn-looking Captain. Kyr stood off to the side of Jaren with his hands clasped behind his back. Lynia motioned for the group to sit in a line and crossed over to stand by Kyr in a similar stance. Now standing much closer to the man than she had been in the main hall before, Karura studied Treyar closely. He was quite tall, almost as tall as Kyr, and overall appeared to have a very athletic build. His features were solidly built, his face composed and handsome. Treyar's sleek gray hair and pale blue eyes added to his already distinctive features. Overall, he had a very commanding presence even when standing quietly.

Looking over his uniform, she saw what Jaren mentioned earlier about having to wear a lot of extra things. The cut and color of the uniform coat and pants were the same, along with the boots, but the similarities ended there. The belt he wore was a bright white color instead of the gray and black the others sported, and the silver fittings and buttons had very detailed patterns engraved on them. His rank insignia was also of a different style, being a stylized four-pointed star of a gold color, and worn on his shoulder epaulets rather than the collar. Additionally, there was a long pair of cords running through the left epaulet on his coat that were looped and knotted underneath his left arm that terminated in a pair of silver points that hung loosely, moving slightly as his left arm moved. The hat he wore was also different, being a dark red in color instead of the sand-colored shade the others had, although the badge was the same. He also wore what looked to be a long, thin, straight sword in a sheath on the right side of his belt. Only the hilt was really visible, and it looked rather delicate, judging from the thinness of the crossguard and leather-wrapped grip.

Touka walked over quietly to stand beside Jaren, seeming to have an idea of what was going on without being told. Treyar nodded to her, which she returned politely. He titled his head a fraction to the side to get a view of the gathering that had filed in after Lynia and Touka, and a wisp of a smile creased his face before it returned to its previously serious, grave countenance.

"First Sergeant Jaren, we have called you to recognize your continued service in the interest of the sons and daughters of Anterei the Founder," Treyar intoned, pausing after mentioning the name of Anterei. He placed a clasped fist over his heart, which the others mimicked as well, although Touka bowed her head instead.

"You have shown a determined resolve that does the memory of our ancestors much honor," Treyar continued. "For that we are appreciative, and so we have decided to recognize you this evening. First Sergeant, please disarm." Jaren quickly and precisely unbuckled and removed the belt holding his dual blades, turning and presenting them to Touka. Touka folded her hands over the belt with its attached weapons and gently clasped them to her chest as Jaren turned back sharply to face Treyar. Treyar stepped forward and undid the silver tabs pinned on the collar of Jaren's coat. He handed these to Touka as well, who stepped forward and palmed them without a word before returning to where she had been standing.

Treyar stepped forward once more, and this time produced two new insignia, which he pinned to Jaren's coat collar where the old ones had been. The insignia themselves were much different than the previous silver tabs with indentations, instead being a pair of crossed golden swords. Both appeared to represent fairly long, slim swords, although they differed in shape, the one on the left resembling a cross and the one on the right being a more familiar shape of sword with a smaller guard and a slight curve to the blade. Karura noted the sword on the right looked very much like Touka's sword, and thought to ask about that later.

"I pronounce you a Warrant Officer of The Free Company's Fifth Team, part of Anterei's First Division. Congratulations, Warrant Officer Jaren." Jaren brought his hand up to the side of his head in a salute, which Treyar returned. He turned to Kyr and Lynia who saluted him in turn, and he returned theirs. They returned to their original positions, Jaren facing Treyar, and the other two facing Jaren. "Please rearm yourself, Warrant Officer," Treyar said. Touka turned to Jaren and helped him buckle the belt back on. Karura noted with interest that she whispered something to Jaren, and pressed what she guessed was the rank insignia into his hand, which he quietly accepted with a whispered comment of his own.

"That is all, dismissed," Treyar said authoritatively. Finished giving orders, he dropped the serious look on his face and smiled at Jaren.

"Well now, we're all in trouble now if you're a Warrant Officer already. Before I know it you'll be commissioned as an officer and making even more decisions around here," Treyar said jovially, clapping Jaren on the arm. "Believe me, Captain, I intend to," Jaren retorted with a smile.

"Congratulations, Jaren. Save some for the rest of us on your charge to being Marshal," Kyr said with a smile, shaking Jaren's hand.

"My, my, our Jaren's already wearing the swords," Lynia said, edging Kyr out of the way and hugging Jaren tightly. "Don't go outranking me in such a hurry now, I still need time to catch up." She let go of him to stand at arm's length and get a look at the overall effect of the minor uniform change. "You know, it really suits you, seeing as your mother is Evinkuruga but you're so tied to Anterei."

"It's appropriate then, I suppose," Jaren said with a shrug. He turned to Touka and clasped her hands. "Thank you for attending, it really means a lot to have an Evinkuruga present to watch over any of our ceremonies."

"Oh, please, you're too gracious," Touka said. Although fine at first, she seemed to gradually realize that Jaren was holding her hands, judging from the slight coloration coming to her face and the way she dropped her eyes slightly from his gaze. Further bringing it to attention, Karura produced a half-murmur, half-humming sound in the back of her throat that caused Touka to jump slightly and glare despairingly at the cheerful-looking figure who was obviously enjoying her discomfort.

Jaren noticed this as well, and winced slightly before looking around for something to change the subject. Catching sight of the small crowd behind her, he shifted his weight to one foot as he leaned to the side to get a better look, his ears flicking forward unconsciously. "Ah, you were all in the main hall earlier weren't you? I'm sorry I don't know any of your names, we left to discuss some of our own matters before we could be properly introduced. Mind introducing us Lynia?"

"Jaren, I present Eruruu, Aruruu, and Kamyu," Lynia said, indicating each one in turn with an outstretched hand and open palm. "Eruruu and Aruruu are sisters and physicians who work in the castle and the surrounding area." Eruruu and Aruruu stepped forward and dipped their heads slightly in greeting, and Jaren bowed slightly to them in return.

"Kamyu's here with her sister as representatives of the Onkami Yamukai," Lynia continued after the brief exchange of formalities. Jaren raised an eyebrow on hearing the information. "An honor, to be sure, watcher from the heavens," he said, executing a formal bow directed at her.

Kamyu's eyes went wide. "You're a Strasert! I'm sorry, I didn't realize, I just thought it was a coincidence you looked that way!" She darted forward and grasped his left shoulder and elbow in her hands. "May your ancestors keep your body strong in their defense and service, and keep your eyes clear so they may guide your strikes." Jaren placed his free hand on top of one of hers and lowered his head, closing his eyes in the process. "Ancestors and blood willing," he replied solemnly. Karura exchanged glances with Touka, her confused look mirrored in the Evinkuruga's face as well.

"I hope I recited that alright," Kamyu said as she let go of Jaren's arm and the two separated a short distance. "I just learned that recently in my studies, so I'm not sure if I left out anything." She scuffed her feet nervously and looked upwards at him apprehensively. Jaren smiled. "You did fine, it was a blessing any Strasert would be proud of."

"Really? I'm glad to hear you say that," Kamyu said with a palpable sense of relief. "You need to meet my sister Urutorii when she comes back in a couple of days, I'm sure she'll be glad to see a Strasert here!"

"That sounds wonderful, thank you," Jaren said with a grin. Kamyu smiled back before flitting over happily to rejoin Eruruu and Aruruu.

"What was that all about?" Eruruu had whispered the question to Kamyu as she came back, but didn't get anything in the way of an immediate answer, just a wink and a smile from the black-winged girl. Lynia looked to Jaren with a questioning look. He nodded, and she quietly cleared her throat before continuing with the introductions.

"Ladies, this is my team leader, Warrant Officer Jaren Strasert," she said gesturing to Jaren, who bowed again to them. "He may look a little careless, but I swear he's a fine soldier," Lynia added with a hint of mischief in her voice.

"I can vouch for that," Treyar said amiably as he walked over to Jaren and slapped him on the back lightly. Jaren rolled his eyes and spread his hands wide in a gesture of mock exasperation. Kamyu giggled and Eruruu laughed self-consciously. Aruruu stood by quietly, as was her habit.

"He can certainly fight," Karura said casually, flipping her braided hair over a shoulder with a shake of the head. "You and I must duel some time."

"All in good time. Not to be rude, but I'll need to duel Touka first. Our peoples are obligated by custom to do so whenever meeting, and as I was the first one to meet her, well, I hope you understand," Jaren said deferentially.

"Yes, yes, more rituals between your peoples again," Karura said with a sigh. "I'm amazed you two can remember all of that as well as you do. I guess I'll wait until you're available then."

"Sorry about that, we're a people that place a big emphasis on old traditions and practices, as I'm sure you all find extremely obvious at this point. I'll definitely take you up on that when I can," Jaren said. "Now then, would tomorrow at noon be enough time in advance, Touka?"

"Certainly, I look forward to it. It's been some time since I fought a proper duel with someone of your skills," Touka said. "There were a few Anterei stationed near my home, and I remember watching them duel with our warriors as a child. Having grown up hearing the stories of the Anterei who fought alongside our peoples, seeing their descendants fight in person didn't lose to what I could come up with in my imagination."

"Oh? Which village were you raised in, if you don't mind me asking?"

"The Village of River's Edge, to the south."

"Ah, I know of it. They say the fishing there is superb," Jaren said.

"Better than that," Treyar interjected. "The only place you'll find better fishing for miles on end is the ocean. Scenery's absolutely breathtaking as well."

"You've been there, Captain?" Lynia asked the question with a raised eyebrow.

"I have. I lived there, actually, for two years. The Kern elders decided it'd be a good idea for me to see what the Evinkuruga were like firsthand, and to study the military arts from my uncle Arlet. He had been living out there with the Evinkuruga ever since his wife died and he retired from his position as Commander of the southern regions."

"He lived in the Anterei settlement? Perhaps I saw him before I left on my travels," Touka said thoughtfully. "What does he look like?"

"Very imposing. Tall man, broad shoulders, very light-colored eyes to the point where it's hard to tell exactly what color they are and look like they're looking straight through you when your eyes meet," Treyar rattled off. "Most people remember him for his wild-looking hair though, it's more like a mane of light gray hair that goes halfway down his back," he said, reaching behind his head with his hands and tracing an imaginary path.

"Your uncle is Brother Grey?!" Touka's face was frozen in an expression of utter amazement.

"Oh, so you know of the man. Yes, that was what some of the Evinkuruga liked to call him."

"Know of him? He's a living legend! Every other week he would come to the village in the mid-afternoon to teach us some history or help our usual teachers explain more difficult concepts. Other than that, sometimes we would watch him practice his weapons forms by himself or with a partner from the village. If he had free time he'd sit on the huge rock in the center of the village and tell us stories about the things he had seen or done. My favorite was his story about the first day of the Battle of Black Ridge Pass."

"Mine too," Treyar said, laughing. "The man took a sling bullet to the head that sent him tumbling down most of the ridge and somehow managed to charge right back up screaming for his men to rally behind him the whole way." Aruruu yawned loudly behind them. Treyar turned to look at the young girl and chuckled.

"Aruruu! You should be more polite when others are talking!" Eruruu placed her hands on her hips and shot a disapproving look at her younger sister.

"Don't worry about it, I expect this kind of thing to be boring," Treyar said warmly. "And besides, it is rather late. Perhaps it'd be best if we all got some rest soon. I know I've had a long day planning all manner of things, and I'm sure the rest of you are tired from traveling all day." Treyar punctuated his last statement with a nod of his head towards the members of the Free Company and the two warriors that had accompanied them.

"Not a bad idea, Captain," Jaren said while carefully stretching out his right arm over his head. "I should get my arm looked at it any case, it was acting up a little while ago."

"Ah, get that sorted out as soon as you can then," Treyar said. "I can't have a team leader losing their edge in this situation."

"If you like, I could take a look at it for you," Eruruu offered, stepping forward. "I'm a physician, after all."

"I think I'll take you up on that offer. Lynia could use a break from having to help me out with that, like she usually does," Jaren said, looking over to the scarf-wearing woman. "Sound fine to you?"

"Fine with me," Lynia said with a shrug. "I'll stop by your room and leave you the things you need out of my medical bag."

"I'll show you to your rooms then," Eruruu said with a wave of the hand to the doorway. The Free Company members paused to shoulder their packs before following her. The group filed out after her as she lead them through the castle hallways. Treyar caught Karura's eye and waved her over to where he was standing, still in the room. Touka had noticed this as well, and walked over to the man.

"Sorry for pulling you aside like this, but I wanted you to at least get a brief moment to ask any questions you may have had for me. If Jaren's been as talkative as he usually is when meeting new allies, I'm guessing he absolutely drowned you in information today. Since we'll be working together for some time, I figure you should get a better idea of who we are and anything else like that. So, where shall we start?"

"Was he really raised by an Evinkuruga woman?" Touka had blurted out the question before Karura could come up with any one question she wanted to ask. "Ah! I'm sorry, that was rude of me," Touka mumbled, her embarrassment clearly etched on her features.

"Don't worry about it," Treyar said to her. "Yes, Jaren's mother Ayiri is indeed an Evinkuruga, as well as a strong warrior, a fine artist, and a wonderful woman. She also makes delicious chimaku, if you ever get a chance to meet her in person and eat her cooking."

"Oh... yes, I'll make sure to do that," Touka said haltingly, her face showing her surprise at such a direct and unusual response.

"Anything you were wondering, ma'am?" Treyar turned and grinned at Karura as he asked the question.

"Who is he, really?" For once, Karura had asked a direct question with no hint of anything else besides complete seriousness and a desire to know the truth. Treyar only blinked slightly, which Touka found amazing given the intensity of Karura's gaze.

"Jaren's a very bright man who could've easily earned himself a position on the Noseshechika Governing Council but turned it down to follow the call of his lineage and his heart," Treyar replied without hesitation. Karura's eyes lit up and her eyebrows lifted, but she said nothing. "He's the kind of man that the Founder himself would be proud to call son, and I feel especially lucky to have him in my unit."

Treyar scratched the underside of his chin lightly as he finished speaking. He looked upwards at nothing in particular, grinning before he made eye contact with the two women again. "I'd also say he would make any woman happy because he's faithful almost to a fault, but that's also the reason why he's already taken, I suppose," he said with a glint in his eyes similar to the one Lynia had in hers a short time ago. "Not that either of you would do anything to do question that, of course, just a personal observation I'm making as his commanding officer," he added in an entirely casual, offhand manner before Touka could start to splutter an indignant reply. Karura covered her mouth with one hand as she laughed and Touka turned to glare at her, an action that had occurred more times this particular day than she could recall at this point.

"For being his commanding officer, you sure seem to be rather relaxed when talking to him as well as about him," Karura observed, attempting to direct Touka's attention away from the enormous smile she was sporting.

"A fair assessment, I think," Treyar said with a shrug. "First Division's known for being more relaxed when it comes to the relation between commissioned officers and their subordinates, and my Free Company is no exception. Maybe they'll salute me every so often out of habit, and they still call me Captain, but everyone knows where I stand in the scope of things and their own place without us having to be so hung up on formality. Promotions, like the one you just saw, and other ceremonies are the exception as those are important enough that we perform them according to the old customs and standards."

"Jaren and the others mentioned the different Divisions, but I'm not so sure if I understand the differences between them all, and what their roles are," Karura said.

"All in good time," Treyar replied. "Since the two of you will be assisting us, there are many things you deserve to know, so we'll have something like a formal lesson on all that so we can bring you up to speed tomorrow."

"We appreciate it," Karura said. "I do have more questions, but I suppose I'll save them for tomorrow then if that's alright."

"Perfectly fine. Let's go and find the others then, I have something important to tell Jaren about anyways, and I'm sure you're both looking forward to getting to your own rooms as well after everything that's happened today." With that, Treyar walked out of the room and through the hallways that Eruruu had already led the other members of the Free Company and their impromptu audience down with Karura and Touka trailing closely behind. The two of them could guess that Treyar had already been in the castle for some time now, as he seemed to know where he was going without exerting much effort. They reached a hallway with several doors, which Touka recognized as being the one that her own room was located in.

Treyar came to a stop in front of one of the doors and knocked. "It's me," he said. "Come in, Captain," they heard Jaren answer. Treyar slid the door open and entered, Touka and Karura walking in shortly after. Along with Jaren, who was currently busy sorting his gear from the looks of things, Eruruu and Lynia were in the room as well. The two of them sat on the floor away from the door, discussing something related to the various herbs they had pulled from a pouch. Lynia nodded to acknowledge Treyar's entrance when she caught of sight of him, and then returned to whatever it was Eruruu and she had been talking about. Jaren had taken off his coat and hat, hanging them on a chair in the room, as well as his boots which were now propped up against the pack he had been carrying earlier. He was unbuckling his belt along with its attached weapons as they came in, and he carefully hung them off the chair along with the other items already there. Satisfied with their placement, he looked up at Treyar and the pair of warriors.

"Hello again, you two. Captain, what do you need from me?"

"Nothing in particular. I forgot to mention earlier that your cousin Sirie will be joining us shortly. The Second Fleet sent word that she arrived on land not long ago along with her weapons instructor and is on her way here," Treyar said.

"Is she? Come to think of it, it's been some time since I last saw her," Jaren said thoughtfully. "Let's see, she must be twenty-one years old by now. About time for the Belins to get her sent out on a distant posting. She's what, a Sergeant by now?"

"Leading Sergeant in First Division, actually."

"Already? Outstanding progress, that's the Belins for you," Jaren said approvingly. "Sirie's coming, Lynia." Jaren directed the comment behind him to Lynia, who had finished talking to Eruruu.

"Really? How long has it been, two and a half years now? I remember she had just got home on leave from Second Division as were about to leave for our First Division postings," Lynia said. "I remember how cute she was cute when she told me she was jealous that all of us were in First Division already."

"She's catching up though, part of First Division and a Leading Sergeant now."

"The girl moves fast," Lynia said with a smirk. "Still, even if she's gaining, we're in the Free Company already." Eruruu cleared her throat quietly from her seat on the floor behind Lynia. "Oh, sorry about that. I filled in Eruruu on the details of your treatment Jaren, so she's ready whenever you are."

"Oh, right. Thanks, Lynia, go ahead and get settled into your quarters then, that should be it for today. You and Kyr get some sleep, we've got a lot of things to take care of in the morning."

"You got it, Jaren," Lynia said as she gathered up the equipment she had brought in except for the bags of ingredients she left for Eruruu. "I should get going as well, I've got some reports to read through, along with some additional dispatches that'll be delivered in an hour or so by rider. These two still have some questions for you, it seems, so I'll leave you in charge of that," Treyar added with a wink and a grin.

Lynia waited for Treyar to lead the way out, following behind him. "Good night all of you, don't let him carry on for too long," she said to the group still present in the room, sliding the door closed behind her.

"So, more questions? Feel free to ask away, give me a moment so I can make things a bit easier for Eruruu here," Jaren said. He unbuttoned the drab green shirt he was wearing, and placed it on the chair along with his other clothes. As he did so, they got a glimpse of what he had been wearing underneath, what looked like a close-fitting, brown vest. The garment was held in place by several leather straps running across the front of it, buckled left to right and with a pair running vertically on each shoulder. Jaren noted the interested look the two were giving him as they sat down across from him.

"It's an armored vest," he said, unbuckling the vest and tossing it to Karura, who caught it easily with one hand. "It's light," Karura said, surprised. Touka leaned over to get a better look.

"Specially manufactured for us," Jaren explained as he sat down cross-legged on the floor next to where Eruruu was waiting. He nodded to her and extended his right arm out away from his body. She had ground up the ingredients left behind by Lynia, and had a small bowl of salve ready, which she began applying to Jaren's arm, starting at the shoulder.

"It's made up of an array of small plates, with some larger, slightly denser ones in the front around the chest," continued, wincing as Eruruu started to rub the salve into his shoulder. "The plates themselves are rather interesting, since each one is made up of a softer layer of iron laminated with a harder steel layer on either side. The idea behind it was explained to me as allowing for the plates themselves to be thinner, lighter, and more effective than just using any one material. I can't really say if that's the case, but it's definitely a good piece of armor to have. You can take a look at the plates themselves if you like, you just need to undo all the fasteners holding the two pieces of cloth backing together."

"It's very well made," Touka observed after Karura had unfastened part of the front backing and the plates were exposed. Karura nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, I'm sure you didn't come here to ask me questions about my gear. What did the two of you want to know?" Karura passed the armored vest to Touka before looking up at Jaren once more. Her eyes widened as his figure came into view, as he apparently hadn't been wearing anything under his vest aside from a small pouch hanging from his neck by a cord, and was sitting on the floor with the upper part of his body bare. Although he was more on the lean side, his muscles still looked well-defined and toned, a fighter's physique. She could pick out a myriad of scars that traced his frame, from his neck to his stomach. The ones on his right arm that Eruruu was smoothing salve over were the most severe in appearance and the amount of area they covered. They ran from around his elbow up to his shoulder, and from the look of it came from very deep wounds.

"Is that the injury you were talking about earlier?"

"It is," Jaren said, clenching his jaw and inhaling sharply. Eruruu had started treating the area between his shoulder and elbow, evidently the more painful section. "Are you alright?" Eruruu stopped applying the salve to look at Jaren.

"I'm fine," Jaren said with a grimace. "The treatment is great, it just stings like you wouldn't imagine. Better than having my arm start freezing up when I need it though, that's for certain."

"Not to worry, Eruruu is one of this country's top..." Touka's initially reassuring response trailed off as she looked up to see Jaren sitting without a shirt on. Jaren's armored vest fell to the ground with a soft clanking noise as she unintentionally loosened her grip on it, which made the already flustered Evinkuruga even more distraught. Touka lips formed an uneven line as she looked down at the floor, too embarrassed to say anything.

"She's always so cute when she's embarrassed," Karura said with a smirk. Jaren, unsure of how to respond to the situation shrugged, sharply inhaling in pain as he did so. "You shouldn't move your shoulder for a few minutes until the salve finishes working on your muscles," Eruruu said disapprovingly.

"No need to tell me twice," Jaren said ruefully as she finished up the treatment. "Thank you for all the help."

"You're very welcome," Eruruu said with a pleasant smile. "Let me know if you need me to do this for you again." She gathered up the materials Lynia had left her for the treatment and walked to the door. "Oh, you can put your shirt back on again," she said, turning around to address Jaren. "Keeping that area warm should help the salve's effects."

"Thanks for the advice, I'll do that," Jaren replied as she left the room and slid the door closed behind her. He got up from his seat on the floor, pushing against the wooden floorboards with his left arm to raise himself to his feet. Retrieving his shirt from its spot on the chair, he slipped his left arm into its sleeve, the rest of the shirt hanging loosely from the one shoulder that it was draped over. Jaren moved his right arm to do the same, but stopped with a wince.

"Well, this is quite the situation. It's a little embarrassing for me to ask, but could one of you help me get this shirt on?" Jaren scratched the back of his neck with a sheepish smile on his face.

"Really, men are so helpless sometimes," Karura said with mock disdain as she rose to her feet and walked over to Jaren. She easily pulled the shirt off of Jaren by the cuff of the left sleeve, draping the shirt over his shoulders before deftly pulling the right sleeve over his injured arm. Placing a hand lightly against his shoulder to hold it in place, she did the same with his left arm before tugging on the collar to straighten it. She started to button the shirt up from the bottom, reaching around his waist to do so. As Jaren was taller than her, Karura raised herself high enough on her toes to see her hands, leaning forward so her chin and hair were brushing against Jaren's shoulder.

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Jaren said, his words stopping as soon as they had started thanks to a decidedly ungentle prod to the shoulder by Karura. "Don't be stubborn, you shouldn't be moving your arm anyways if you felt that one." Jaren didn't respond, although the look on his face showed that he had.

"Karura! You know he's injured!" Touka had regained her composure, judging by the return of the now familiar tone and glare she adopted whenever Karura did something particularly inappropriate from her viewpoint.

Karura peered over her vantage point from Jaren's shoulder at her irritable friend with a smug look on her face. "I'm sure it's not a problem, after all, I doubt it's every day you get help being dressed," she said sultrily as she finished buttoning his shirt. "Right, Jaren?"

"I swear, you're absolutely impossible," Jaren said resignedly. "In any case, thank you for the help. Now, what did you want to know?" He sat back down in his spot across from the two of them, carefully placing his right hand on his right knee in an effort to avoid aggravating his arm any further. Karura returned to her place next to Touka.

"Earlier today in the woods when you picked me out as a Giriyagina, that wasn't a lucky guess or an observation, was it? You already knew I was going to be there and who I was long before you showed up on the scene." Touka glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye. Karura was being unusually direct today, perhaps as a result of someone who knew her past suddenly showing up, she thought to herself.

Jaren looked at her, silent for a moment. "You're right," he finally said with a slow nod. "We make a point of monitoring the movements of those from important lines or who are otherwise part of influential families or countries."

"How long have they been watching for?" The question came out of Karura's mouth as soon as Jaren had finished speaking. The question wasn't asked with any ill intention, but the hard edge to her words was palpable. Jaren blinked, frowning as he looked down at the floor, seeming to be uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed.

"Since before the first rebellion toppled the Giriyagina," he said, looking up hesitantly.

"And your Clan Anterei," Karura continued, her voice a dangerous, barely audible whisper at this point. "Where were they during this?"

"Please, Karura, I think you already know what my answer is going to be," Jaren said quietly.

"I want to hear it from you! Tell me!" The usual Karura was nowhere to be seen at this point; even her typical relaxed way of sitting was gone, instead being replaced by a tense posture, her hands clenched into fists as they rested uneasily on her knees.

"Karura, I'm not sure if..." Touka offered, but stopped as Jaren looked at her and shook his head. Karura's gaze was practically boring a hole into Jaren at this point, but the hesitation he had shown earlier seemed to have vanished at this point as he stared back coolly.

"The decision was made by Clan Anterei that intervention was not a viable option. Our intelligence branch projected that the coup would take place successfully without a sufficient window of opportunity for any action on our part to prevent or alter the direction of events. Furthermore, even if there was, we would prefer both factions involve slit one another's throats in the process and in doing so mutually weaken the power of Na Tunk as a whole, which is exactly what happened. All of the killing and the damage that could've occurred in the process was considered as acceptable to the council that was convened after this information was received." Jaren stared back at Karura expectantly as he finished his statement in a voice devoid of emotion.

"Your people watched? They watched what happened and didn't do a thing? They knew what was to come and did nothing? Thousands of people died!" Karura had raised her voice when she delivered her words, but Jaren continued to gaze back at her dispassionately.

"Business as usual for a country who would treat people as a commodity," Jaren said viciously, his voice finally carrying a discernible emotion. "I've seen the scars your countrymen inflicted on those unlucky enough to be packed away on those slave ships they used to run before Na Tunk fell once and for all. Fathers and mothers separated from their children, families and villages destroyed forever and for what? So Na Tunk could continue to prop itself up on the bones of the slaves it peddled to prove that the Giriyagina were wealthy and powerful? We were willing to watch Na Tunk burn so the possibility of finally being able to destroy it once and for all would be that much closer!" Touka couldn't help but flinch at the hatred in Jaren's voice as he spoke. His emotions had an effect on Karura as well, rendering her unable to respond in any way aside from staring at him bitterly.

"Jaren, that's going too far," Touka said quietly, looking at the two staring each other down.

"Is it now," Jaren deadpanned. "Maybe you've heard this saying before: 'Never shall the suffering of slaves be condoned by the free, or the products of chained hands be welcomed so long as the nation of Noseshechika stands.' I believe an educated woman such as yourself is familiar with it."

"Zealot," Karura muttered as she turned away, and stood up. "I think I'll excuse myself from this enjoyable conversation, if you don't mind."

"Karura, wait," Touka said, the concern for her friend obvious in her voice. She looked to Jaren again, but he merely sat and gave her a blank look.

"I'll leave the two of you alone so you can share some more of your culture, or whatever it is your people do in this situation," Karura said sarcastically. Looking over her shoulder, she shot a hard glance at Jaren one final time before sliding the door open and closing it behind her as she slipped out of the room.

Jaren let out a tired sigh and put his left hand over his face briefly before looking back up to see an angry Touka glaring at him as well. "What was that all about?"

"Ideology," Jaren said. "A blessing and a curse all rolled into a nice bundle. Among all the things that have caused so much death, ideology surely is a leader. Add politics into the mix, and you've got the makings of a grand slaughter on your hands."

"You're not making any sense at all, Jaren," Touka said tersely.

"How about this, then? What have the worst battles you've witnessed all shared in common?" Jaren asked the question, carefully watching Touka's face for any hint of what she was thinking.

"The perversion of justice, and what is right," she answered almost immediately. Jaren smiled sadly in response. "The Precepts, I remember them well. Spoken like a daughter of the Evinkuruga. I've always admired that about your people, the conviction they are able to hold in their spirit."

"You have a different answer, I take it," Touka said with a furrowed brow.

"Even the pursuit of justice has bloody consequences. We received reports of what happened with Kuccha Keccha. You were there. You must have seen what happened to the villages that were unfortunate enough to be in the path of the fighting. If not during the war, then at the very least after."

"That... that was a mistake," Touka said as she looked away.

"And what a mistake that turned out to be. A needless war fought under the direction of a man blinded by his sorrow and rage," Jaren said, shaking his head in disgust. "What a perfect vision of the deepest pits of Dinebokshir from start to finish that war was. When a commander considers a surprise raid on a village that kills its inhabitants to the last man, woman, and child as an acceptable act, is it any wonder that the cause behind it was equally as warped?"

"Please, Jaren, stop," Touka whispered.

"I've been to Yamayura, Touka," Jaren said. "It looked like it was a little village of no real importance where the people there were looking to do nothing more than live out their lives. To raise their children, to grow old. It's all gone now. All I saw were what probably used to be fields, and the faint outlines of where houses used to be. Some simple stone slabs that mark the final resting places of the people who used to live there is all that's there now."

"Jaren, stop already!" Jaren's head snapped up at the sound of Touka's outburst. Even though she was looking down at the floor, he could see her eyes were slightly red and moist, and that she was shaking slightly.

"Please, Jaren, just... stop," she pleaded, still not making eye contact with Jaren.

"I'm sorry," Jaren said quietly. "I forget my place sometimes. You were right, I said too much. To both of you. I have a hard time forgetting what I've seen."

"You're not the only one," Touka said, sniffling as she spoke.

"I know, and I apologize. I seem to have a knack for saying things that upset people at times like these," he said regretfully. "Makes me wonder how I ever managed to not be totally alone sometimes."

"You kept on mentioning you were waiting for someone. Is she your promised one?" Touka had changed the subject, trying to steer the conversation away from the course it had been taking.

"She is," Jaren said with a nod. "Did you ever have conversations like this with her as well?" Touka asked the question with her head cocked to the side in curiosity.

"Fairly often, yes," Jaren said after staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. "Why?"

"I was just wondering. Perhaps I'm being rude, but do the two of you fight a lot then?" Jaren shook his head with a smirk. "If you can believe it, not since the first time we met."

"What happened?"

"Well, after a few seconds or so of circling one another, I stabbed her in the leg and she gave me the arm injury here," Jaren said nonchalantly, motioning to the large scarred area on his right arm. Touka stared, and suddenly started to laugh, trying to stifle her laughter with a hand over her mouth. Jaren stared, unsure of what to make of the woman's sudden change in mood.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. You need to introduce me to your promised one sometime," Touka said, still laughing as she wiped away the tears that had welled up in her eyes only a short time earlier.

"She's a bit slow to warm up to new people, but I think she'd get along with you," Jaren said with a grin. "Karura too, although I'm assuming I'll need to do a little work on how we're getting along at the moment. Suggestions?"

"The past is a sore spot for Karura. She doesn't like to talk about it much, and I've known her for years. I think she has some things in her past she'd rather not remember," Touka said with a serious expression on her face.

"I think we can all honestly say that, but I see your point. I'll try to keep my tongue in check," Jaren said, folding his arms across his chest as his gaze strayed upwards again. He drummed the fingers of his right hand against his left elbow for a moment before his eyes snapped back down to make eye contact with Touka again. "Do you think a gift along with an apology would be out of place?"

Touka cupped her chin with a hand as she thought the question over. "As long as it's something fitting, I can't see it being a problem."

"I think I've got a good solution in mind then," Jaren said with a satisfied nod. "It's getting late. Should I walk with you back to your room?" He stood up from his seat on the floor, and slid the door open.

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," Touka said as she rushed to stand up and held her hands out in front of her. "I live just down at the end of the hall."

"Ah, then I won't keep you any longer. Good night then, Touka," Jaren said with a bow.

"Sleep well," Touka replied as she returned the bow before leaving and sliding the door shut behind her.

Jaren walked over to the bed and sat down wearily. He turned his head to glance at the new rank insignia pinned to his coat. What a day it had been. He pulled the pouch out from under his shirt and loosened the drawstring holding it closed before shaking it out onto his free hand. Jaren smiled as the contents, a band of blue cloth and a ring, fell into the palm of his hand. Enclosing them in a fist, he pressed his knuckles to his mouth briefly before returning them to the pouch and looping it around his neck again.

"Good night, both of you," he said under his breath as he extinguished the lights in his room.


	6. Chapter 6: Memories of Days Past

Author's Note

Again with the lateness. Sorry for taking so long, but I think the end result is worth it compared to what this chapter was like before the numerous revisions and wholesale deletion of parts I wrote and didn't like upon reading them again. I appreciate those of you who are still following this story in spite of my irregular update schedule, and hope that you'll keep reading.

Chapter Six: Memories of Days Past

"Are you going to tell me what happened last night, or are we in for a long day?"

Jaren looked up from his seat on the wide terrace. He had just finished cleaning his weapons, and was preparing to sharpen the longer of the two blades before Lynia had showed up and posed the question. "You noticed then," he said as he carefully laid the short sword down on a clean cloth.

"It's just slightly difficult not to when a pair of people sitting directly across from one another say absolutely nothing between the two of them. Especially if one them goes so far as to ask others sitting next to them to pass them things during breakfast instead, and one of those people happens to be me," Lynia said irritably. "So, yes, you can say I might have caught on that something happened. What could you have possibly done?"

"Nothing in particular," Jaren said as he turned back to his preparations. He picked up his short sword again, and poured a measure of oil onto the whetstone placed in front of him before placing the blade against it and grinding it against its surface.

"Please, spare me the semantics. Then what did you say?" She placed a great emphasis on the last word. Jaren's face didn't change at all from its almost unconcerned expression.

"I'm guessing it must have been rather spectacular if someone who was all over you yesterday suddenly stops talking to you." Lynia said as she sat down next to Jaren, and laid back with her hands clasped behind her head, evidently preparing for a long explanation.

"I guess you could say that," Jaren said blandly, the noise of his blade grinding against the stone punctuating his words.

"Eh, is that so?" The question was directed at Jaren despite Lynia not even looking in his direction anymore, instead gazing up at the clear sky aimlessly. The two said nothing else for a while, Jaren sharpening his sword and Lynia letting time elapse without comment.

"She asked me about Anterei's role in the Na Tunk rebellion, the one that deposed the Giriyagina," Jaren said finally, the blade in his hands no longer scraping against the stone. He turned to face Lynia.

"It went downhill from there," Lynia said as a statement rather than a question.

"In a manner of speaking," Jaren replied.

"So it did," Lynia fired back without missing a beat. Jaren nodded. More time passed as the two silently watched a small clump of clouds pass.

"You're in a deep mess," Lynia said, sitting up. "Of course, that goes without saying."

Jaren nodded again, and turned back to his sharpening. He finished, carefully wiping any excess oil off the blade before returning it to its sheath, and began sharpening his long knife. "I was thinking I'd go to the market and buy a gift for her, as an apology of sorts," he said after some time.

"Not a bad idea. Have anything specific in mind?"

"A set of drinking cups and a jug of spirits," Jaren said. "What do you think?"

"Good choice. She does seem to be fond of drink," Lynia said approvingly. "Should go along well with a normal apology like normal people usually give when they land themselves in a mess."

"Since when was I ever normal? Stop glaring at me Lynia, I can feel your eyes burning a hole in me," Jaren said in exasperation, as Lynia was indeed glaring at him "I'll give you that, but you still need to apologize," she replied, still glaring.

"Captain should just promote you already so you can give me advice officially," Jaren said jokingly.

"That'd ruin the fun now, wouldn't it?" The new voice belonged to Treyar himself, and went along with a smile that to both Lynia and Jaren looked like trouble.

"Sorry Captain, I didn't mean to question your decisions," Jaren said as he and Lynia jumped up to their feet and stood at attention.

"It's fine, think nothing of it," Treyar said, motioning for them to relax. "As to what that advice may be, if you were discussing what I think you were, it might not be necessary anymore."

"Captain?" Lynia had asked the question, and looked to Treyar questioningly.

"I just finished giving Karura and Touka the short version of the Anterei history. They caught on fast enough that I had some extra time, and I went over our personal operational histories. Karura had the most interesting expression on her face when I got to your days in First Division, and I mentioned what the three of you were up to during the Na Tunk rebellion. Apparently, she didn't know about the fact that you were all helping her brother directly," Treyar said.

"I see," Jaren said. "Did she mention anything about last night?"

"No, but if I consider that the two of you were acting a bit cold to one another this morning, Karura's particular reaction, and the fact that Lynia was browbeating you just a moment ago, I think I have an overall idea of what happened," Treyar said with a smirk. "Also, knowing your particular talent when it comes to women..."

"Don't say it Captain, please," Jaren said, his eyes closed in a grimace.

"How did you not tell her about that?!" Lynia's glare had returned in full force.

"I didn't really get to it, seeing as I upset her enough for her to leave without getting the chance to say anything more," Jaren said, eyes still closed.

"At least you didn't aggravate Touka," Treyar said with a laugh. "The two of you are getting along rather well, it'd be a real shame."

"I guess I just understand the Evinkuruga temperament better," Jaren said. "Would make sense, considering my family."

"Very true," Treyar said. "Anyway, don't let me hold you up. You've got a duel to prepare for right now, former royalty to talk to later, and I've got reports to sort out later tonight!" His tone was cheerful, but the two of them could tell there was no real enthusiasm behind it. The frown he was wearing made it even more obvious just how much fun Treyar thought he was going to be having.

"Good luck with that, Captain," Jaren said. He couldn't help but smile a little at their usually dauntless leader looking so defeated because of some paperwork.

"Oh, don't you smile just yet," Treyar said direly. "At this rate I'm going to speed up your promotion to Lieutenant so you can share in the joy. You're lucky that Free Company reports can only be filled out by commissioned officers."

"How fortunate," Jaren said, involuntarily cringing at the threat that had been issued.

"For you, maybe. See you on the parade ground," Treyar grumbled, a strained smile not quite crossing his features as he plodded off to his room. Kyr came around the hallway leading to the terrace, snapping to attention and saluting as he saw Treyar walk towards him. The Captain returned the salute not quite as energetically, saying nothing as he walked past. Kyr looked confused for a moment before a flash of understanding lit his face.

"Paperwork?" Kyr walked over and took a seat next to his two teammates, asking the question as he settled himself more comfortably on the wooden floor.

"You are correct," Lynia said with a smirk. "Anything interesting happen on your end?"

"Nothing really, no. Some of our potential recruits had a bit of trouble with the screening, but it's not like a little supplementary training won't clear that up," Kyr said, looking off in the distance. "I guess they don't do that much in the way of running, being Capital Guard and all. Probably too used to patrolling streets and standing in towers. Maybe run down the occasional thief in the market here and there."

"They are a defensive unit after all. Makes sense," Lynia replied. "You assembled them in the main parade ground?"

"I did. They're taking a break and a light meal right now. Handful of their Sergeants are down there keeping an eye on them for me until the show starts."

"That's good," Lynia said with a nod. "Should be instructive."

"Speaking of which, you've got a rather large turnout waiting for you to show up, sir," Kyr said to Jaren. "Amazing how fast word can spread when you mention there's going to be a duel between a Free Company soldier and a Evinkuruga warrior. I think the entire garrison and a good portion of the castle staff must be present since the Regent allowed for it."

"Good work," Jaren said as he finished the last bit of work on his long knife, wiping and sheathing it as he had the longer of his two blades. "Let's get going, then."

"Excited?" Lynia looked to Jaren with a grin.

"Maybe," Jaren said, grinning back.

"I think I'm more nervous than you are," Kyr quipped as they made their way through the hallways and down the stairs leading to the ground floor.

"Maybe. I have to admit though, I'm a bit anxious to see how she fights."

"Can't you guess? Based on the sword type, I mean," Kyr said.

"I have an idea, but I'm trying not to get too hung up on preconceptions," Jaren said, gesturing with his hands.

"No plans then either," Lynia chimed in.

"Nothing set in stone, yes. I have some general plans, but you know what the Captain says."

"Plan to plan over," the three intoned at once.

"Smart man, your Captain is." The three of them stopped walking to turn and look where the voice had come from, as they had just passed through a hallway that intersected another. The voice belonged to a large, muscular man with a scar on one eye accompanying the composed figure of Benawi. The Free Company members all bowed deeply to the Regent. "Good morning, sir, we were just going to the main parade ground for the duel," Jaren said.

"Yes, as were we. I don't think you've met before, I'd like to introduce the leader of Tusukuru's forces, General Kurou," Benawi said, indicating the physically imposing man by his side.

"Good morning, General," Jaren said.

"Morning. I see I'm not the only one who's moved up in the world since you were here last," Kurou boomed cheerfully, reaching forward to clasp Jaren's hand, who moved forward to complete the gesture.

"Good to see you're in good spirits as always, sir," Jaren said amiably. "Cavalry is still doing fine, I hope."

"What are you saying, friend? Of course they're doing fine, they've got me as a General," Kurou said with a laugh as he swatted Jaren's shoulder lightly.

"You've met before, I take it?" Benawi looked to Kurou, who answered the question with a nod.

"He was giving me reports on the situation during that mess with the Avu Kammu, and for maybe a month and a half after it was over," he said, the warmth in his voice being replaced by a decidedly more serious tone.

"My team and I were responsible for the northwestern portion of the border in the direction of Noseshechika," Jaren added. "Tracking movements of the enemy relative to the people displaced by the fighting, for the most part."

"Ah, I recall now. I'm glad we had the support of your people during that time, it would have been much worse without your scouts giving us early warning," Benawi said. "Come, we'll walk with you to the parade ground."

"You're too kind, Regent," Jaren said as they continued down the hallways leading outside.

"Introduce me to your friends, why don't you, I haven't seen them before," Kurou said as they walked, glancing over at Lynia and Kyr.

"Oh, of course, I should have done that to begin with. General, I present Leading Sergeant Lynia Milthas and Sergeant Kyr Ilvos," Jaren said, gesturing to his teammates in turn as he named them. The two nodded politely to Kurou as they walked.

"Ah, you mentioned them, now that I think about it. Pleasure to meet you two, Jaren told me a lot about you two," Kurou said.

"Nothing embarrassing, I hope," Lynia said, giving Jaren another look. He pretended not to notice. Kyr coughed nervously.

"Not that I can recall. You've all been together since your training cohort more or less, that sort of thing," Kurou said reassuringly. "Now that I think about it, he did tell me a few stories about his student days that were quite funny."

"Having a lot of spare time on one's hands between class sessions helps when it comes to those sorts of things," Jaren said.

"You were a student? Excuse me for saying so, but that seems a bit unusual for a professional soldier, although I suppose I'm one to talk," Benawi said.

"I don't mind, sir. It was something my family suggested, and that I agreed with completely. They brought up the idea after I decided on joining the Soranan military, actually," Jaren said. "My uncle Tellis said it would be of great help to have a more formalized education."

"Your uncle sounds like a very wise man," Benawi said with a nod. "Ah, we're here." As he finished speaking, the group stepped out onto the main parade ground. Kyr hadn't been exaggerating; there were hundreds of soldiers and castle staff assembled, some sitting around the space that had been designated for the duel, others standing behind them to get a better view.

"Some crowd," Lynia said, impressed. "Almost like the capital forum back home, although the audience is a little less distinguished."

"More like less haughty," Kyr said with a smirk. "Spend more time gossiping with their neighbors than watching the actual performances, they do."

"Well then, guess it's on you to make sure they get what they came for, eh Jaren?" Kurou beamed at the tall scout standing next to him. Jaren nodded, rubbing his right shoulder slightly. "I'll try not to disappoint," he said absentmindedly. He was scanning the crowd for any sign of Touka, finally catching sight of her sitting cross-legged under the shade of a tree with her sword across her lap, head bowed. Kurou caught sight of this as well. "Is she alright?"

"She's fine. Just preparing herself mentally. The Evinkuruga have a sort of mental ritual they go through before a duel." As Jaren finished speaking, Touka slowly rose from the ground and replaced the sword at her hip. She walked towards the dueling ring formed by the crowd, those in her way clearing a path without any need for words.

"Well, I better get going," Jaren announced to them. "Regent." Benawi nodded in acknowledgment. "I am certain you'll do well out there."

"I thank you for the kind words," Jaren replied, and looked over to his teammates. "I'll see you two after we've finished."

"Take care of your arm out there," Lynia cautioned. Kyr bobbed his head in agreement.

"Will do." Jaren set off through the crowd, following Kurou.

"Alright, you slackers, clear a path," Kurou called out as they neared the crowd. The reaction from the soldiers nearest was immediate, with the previously unorganized clumps of men jumping to attention and forming neat ranks, parting to allow their chief commander and the following duelist through.

Jaren noticed a good deal of the men looking at him curiously, as he wasn't wearing the dress uniform marking him as Free Company, but instead one very similar to the patterned uniform he had wore previously. The difference was that the colors were primarily of a tan and brown palette, and the pattern was composed of angular shapes instead of the small blotches of color. Additionally, there was an overlay of what looked like small, faint colored lines overlaid on top of the pattern, almost as if the clothing had been struck by a light scattering of small raindrops from above. The pattern stood out against the dirt of the parade ground, which was uniform in color. His combination scarf and head wrap dangled loosely from his neck, and displayed a similar pattern to the his main clothing, along with the gloves and leg wrappings. The harness was back as well, holding his long knife under his right shoulder and short sword at his left hip again, although the pouches were nowhere to be seen this time. Only the hat was absent this time, and a slight breeze made its presence known by moving his sand-colored hair about.

As Jaren walked through the crowd, he rolled his shoulders, rotating his neck from side to side with an audible popping noise. Balling his hands up into fists, he performed a similar procedure with his wrists, then fanning his fingers out before finally relaxing them as he came to a stop in the center of the parade ground. He spaced his feet apart about shoulder width, and clasped his hands together, placing them in the small of his back. Jaren waited in this position, staring straight ahead as Touka crossed the ground between them to stand in front of him.

"Good afternoon," Jaren said, taking a step forward and extending his right hand. Touka took a step forward as well, and the two clasped the other's right wrist. "Good afternoon to you as well," Touka said firmly.

"My, it's been some time since I've seen you so serious, if you don't mind me saying," Kurou said with a smirk.

"I would shame the memory of our peoples if I were to be any less prepared," Touka replied. Kurou shrugged in response, shaking his head. "I wouldn't really know, but you would be the authority in this situation."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Jaren said to Touka. "We'll start once Captain Treyar makes his way down here. Few last minute errands he needs to run before coming down to arbitrate."

"Arbitrate?" Kurou scratched his head as he repeated the unfamiliar term. "You mean judge?"

"That's right. We might be doing things a little different from what you're used to, so the Captain is going to be observing and making any rulings on the outcome," Jaren said.

"Sounds complicated," Kurou said, rubbing his chin.

"It can be, at times," Jaren said with a wave of his hand as the crowd parted again. This time, Treyar was the one entering. He was clad in his dress uniform still, and the sun gleamed off the brass and silver badge pinned to the front of his red hat. Striding purposefully, he covered the distance between the edge of the crowd and the group of three at the center in short order. Touka caught sight of a long, thin object wrapped in a brown cloth he was carrying in the crook of his left arm that to her eyes could only be a sword of some sort. Her speculation proved correct, as Treyar came to a stop moved the wrapped object from underneath his arm and undid a knotted cord at one end. Sliding the cloth downwards, he revealed a sheathed sword. Treyar passed it to Jaren, who took hold of it with a nod.

Jaren brought it up to his eyes as he drew it from the sheath, parallel to the ground. He held the sheath in a rather unusual way, his index and middle fingers on the hand holding the sheath gently tracing the flat of the blade as it emerged. He mouthed something silently as he did, although Touka was unclear as to what he was saying. Jaren finished drawing the sword out, and put the sheath through a convenient loop in the back of his harness as he flipped the sword around, presenting it to Touka on outstretched hands. She took the sword from him carefully as he did so, trying to learn something of its characteristics. Learning anything that would help in the imminent fight would seem prudent, to her thinking.

The sword was a more uncommon design, being straight, with no overall curvature to the blade. Looking at the blade itself, Touka noted there were what appeared to be three different sections. Although the main body of the blade was fairly normal, the tip of the sword was tapered gradually to a point from both sides, unlike hers. The blade was also sharpened on both sides, which continued down the middle section of the sword. What interested her the most was section between that and the guard, the shortest of the sections. From what she could tell, it was unsharpened, much like what she had seen on Lynia's sword earlier. She found this rather curious, as an unsharpened section of blade made much more sense on Lynia's sword, being that it was so long. On a shorter, one-handed sword such as Jaren's there seemed to be less use for any techniques that involved gripping the sword higher up. On its surface, she could see a wavy pattern laid into the metal. There was a small pair of what resembled backwards-pointing wings that acted as a guard in front of the grip, along with a short length of chain dangling from the pommel, a small weight at the end of it.

Testing its balance by hefting it in her sword-hand, she noticed it felt superbly balanced, the point directing itself almost naturally to wherever she willed it. She spun the handle in her hand as she would with her own sword when switching from her normal grip to her reverse grip, and again couldn't detect any shortcomings. Taking a practice swing, the blade seemed to part everything around it, judging by the smoothness with which it cut through the air. "It's a fine weapon," Touka said as she passed the weapon back to Jaren, who bowed his head to her before accepting the weapon and securing it in the sheath now on his back.

He waited for the handful of seconds it took for Touka to draw her own weapon and present it to him with both hands as he had done earlier. Taking hold of the weapon, Jaren carefully appraised the surface of the sword. He squinted, deliberately taking his time to examine the handle, guard, and wrapping before moving on to the actual blade itself. Turning the blade this way and that, his eyes ran over the edge from where the blade met the guard to the tip of the point. Satisfied, he took a dozen steps backwards from Touka, Treyar, and Kurou before assuming a stance with the sword. Touka noted it as a very conservative one, right hand over left on the grip, the handle of the sword close to his ribcage, sword pointing straight up and down Standing on the balls of his feet, he took a short, shuffling step forward before taking a practice swing and shuffling back into place as he completed the swing. He had aimed it at the centerline of an opponent, the tip of the blade cutting into the imaginary opponent from the top of their head to somewhere around the middle of their torso.

Having done this, Jaren did a close imitation of Touka's sword-spinning, although he did not right the sword to its original position, instead leaving the blade in a grip with his smallest finger closest to the guard, rather than his thumb. Swinging the sword like this, he shuffled forward with his right foot leading, aiming a cut at what would be the left thigh of his imaginary opponent and cut past what would be the right shoulder. Going further, he then took a step with his left foot outwards and planted it, transferring his weight to it, and whipping his right foot behind him so that his right leg was forward again. The sword remained held in the same grip, and ended up held outwards to guard his body once more. Jaren flipped the sword around, catching the blade in his left hand as he held the handle with his right. Coming back to Touka and the others, he presented the sword with outstretched arms.

"Thank you for letting me inspect your weapon," Jaren said with a bow of his own. Touka returned the gesture as she took her sword back and returned it to the sheath at her waist. "No, I should thank you for the demonstration," Touka said graciously.

"Everything in order then?" Treyar had asked the question, and looked to the two duelists who nodded in response. "Right, let's get this started then. You'll have to excuse me, ma'am, I'm about to get a bit loud," he said as he turned away from them. Before Touka could ask him what he meant, she caught sight of Jaren wincing and covering his ears with both hands. Touka looked at Kurou, who shrugged and covered his own before following Jaren's lead. She could hear Treyar taking a very deep breath before deciding it would be for the best if she copied them as well.

"Sorry to keep you waiting! I am Captain Treyar Kern of the Free Company, and I am here today to arbitrate this duel!" Touka now appreciated Jaren's warning; Treyar's voice was positively tremendous, and almost painfully loud even with her hands covering her ears. She watched as Treyar looked around before taking another breath to continue.

"The conditions are simple: the first duelist to be caught in a situation that would end in serious injury or death loses the duel! Injuries are to be sustained and will not stop the duel! The duelists will stop only on my signal! That is all!" Treyar's statements had an audible effect, judging from how the assembled crowd murmured to one another about the conditions.

"Hey, now, that sounds a little excessive, doesn't it?" Kurou looked worried as he asked the question. He glanced over to Benawi, who made no indication of what if anything was to be done.

"Have some faith, General," Treyar said, turning back to face them, his announcement finished. "These two fight at a high enough standard that there's nothing to worry about. Few bruises here and there, a cut or two, they'll be fine."

"If you say so, Captain," Kurou said.

"Your concern is welcome, but unnecessary," Touka said imperiously. "It would shame the Evinkuruga if I were to seriously harm an Anterei."

Kurou held his hands up defensively. "Forget I mentioned it," he said quickly. "I should know better, having seen you fight before."

"I should apologize in advance for any marks I leave on you after this is over," Jaren remarked.

"Hmph. That's only if you manage to hit me," Touka said, her winged ears sticking rigidly outwards as she glared at him. "That's the spirit," Jaren said with a grin. "Best we get started then. Captain, if you would?"

"Sure thing, Jaren," Treyar said, winking at him. "Duelists! Take your positions!" The shouted command from Treyar quieted down the crowd instantly, the wind blowing through the grounds and the sound of Jaren and Touka's footsteps the only noises anyone could hear. They stopped a distance of twenty paces between them and turned to face one another.

"Prepare!"

Touka dropped into a half-crouch and placed a hand on the sword at her hip. Curiously, Jaren did nothing, remaining in a loose stance with his hands out in front of him, right leg and right hand slightly leading, his knees slightly flexed.

"Begin!"

Across from him, Touka exploded forward, her feet a flurry as she closed the distance between them in a series of rapid, small steps. She drew and aimed a cut at Jaren's torso with her left hand still on the sheath, the blade moving from left to right in front of her. Right as her sword left the sheath, Jaren went into action as well, darting backwards to evade the sword slash before charging forward and to Touka's left in the blade's wake. Seeing this, Touka ended her swing early, transferring her left hand to grip the handle as well and using the additional leverage to begin a new attack. This time she aimed her blade upwards and to the left, diagonally. Her swing was halted prematurely by a blur of motion and a sharp clang that accompanied the impact traveling up her arms.

Jaren had finally drawn a weapon and met her sword blade in mid-swing. He had positioned his body so that his left leg was straight, and his right leg bent at the knee, the center of his weight forward. His left arm was trailing his body much like his left leg, and his left hand held the long sword that was no longer in its sheath. Touka's mind was briefly possessed by a flash of surprise at this, as she had assumed Jaren was right-handed prior to this incident from what she had seen the day before during the fight in the clearing. Did that mean he was left-handed, then? She pushed the thought from her mind as the sword in Jaren's left hand transitioned from its parrying maneuver to the attack. Quickly breaking his elongated stance, Jaren took a more compact one as he leaned his body forward to arc his sword from right to left in an attack aimed at Touka's neck.

She dodged the attack with a quick hop away, and began to circle around Jaren to her left, trying to keep out of the reach of his left arm, or at the very least position herself so that any attacks made with his left would be not as strong. Jaren responded by circling to his own right, keeping the distance and positioning between the two the same. Touka could see his gray-green eyes tracking her, intensely focused on her movements. Jaren hardly blinked as they continued to revolve around one another. It came as a surprise then when Touka saw Jaren smile and wink at her. There was just enough time for her mind to register this before Jaren sprang into action again and all extraneous thoughts were pushed aside.

Touka's reflexes and instincts took over. Jaren was rapidly approaching, running at her in a crouch and trying to keep her in the arc that he could use his longsword most effectively. She saw him aiming for a shallow slash at her midsection as he closed, likely with the palm of his hand holding the sword pointing up, meaning he would be looking to stay on her left in a mirror of her own tactics of fighting the opponent on their weaker side. Sure enough, Jaren continued to close and the sword flipped outwards, his palm up. With only a moment to spare, Touka moved her own blade to deflect Jaren's out and away from her body, and took a step backwards with her right leg, tensing her body to whip around for a counter.

What happened next was more than she had expected. Her well-placed blade never deflected anything besides a gentle breeze, and she felt a jolt of pain on the back of her right hand. At some point in his approach, Jaren had transferred the longsword to his right hand, and in his left there was the long knife instead. He had slammed the pommel of his long knife into the back of her right hand as she had held it in place prepared to parry, and she now found the blade of his longsword pressed flat against the inside of her left thigh. The knife in his left hand was now held in an overhand grip, the point angled downwards and aimed where her shoulder met her neck.

"Halt! Duelists, break contact and cease combat!" The sound of astonished whispers and comments could be heard rippling through the crowd as soon as Treyar had finished shouting his command. The duel had lasted perhaps maybe all of half a minute, a good portion of it taken up by Jaren and Touka circling each other.

The two duelists pointed their blades away from one another carefully, and moved away from one another to sheathe their weapons, Touka doing so in a daze. In essentially the blink of an eye, Jaren had managed to close the distance to where she could hear him breathing slowly. He had slipped inside of her blade's striking distance, and reached a position where he could inflict two crippling wounds on her. Touka felt dismayed as one thought crossed her mind: even if she had somehow dodged the long knife aimed at her left shoulder, it was unlikely she could avoid a severe injury to her left thigh. At best, she would have sustained a deep cut to her left leg that would make fast movement all but impossible, and at worst the artery in her left leg could have been severed. The thought vexed her, but she had to admit that Jaren had outdone her in a clear and undisputed fight. She stole a quick glance at Jaren's face to see if he was showing any emotion, but all she could see was a quiet composure while he closed his eyes and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Duelists, approach!" Jaren and Touka walked over to where Treyar had been observing. He clasped his hand around Jaren's left arm and raised it up. "The winner, by dual entrapment, Warrant Officer Jaren Strasert of the Free Company!" Again, the noise of people in the crowd talking to those next to them rose in response. Kurou strode over to where they were all standing as Treyar finished announcing the results, and the duelists bowed to one another again.

"Alright, you laggards, the show's over," Kurou shouted. "Sergeants, take charge of your men! I better not see any guards not at their stations or talking away instead of watching their areas, still a lot of time left for me to detail some extra work! Dismissed!" The noise of the crowd rose a notch again as sergeants of the guard began running around and directing those under their command, and the castle staff started gossiping as they headed back to their work.

"Quite a show, Jaren. You never disappoint," Kurou said with a smile as he turned to face them.

"Wouldn't dream of it, General," Jaren replied earnestly. "We were hoping this would help the news of our being here spread."

"Don't you worry about that," Kurou said, laughing. "One thing you can always be certain of is that soldiers and castle staff will talk, and with you beating our distinguished Touka, I think the talk will spread even faster than usual."

Jaren glanced over at Touka. "I feel bad for not asking earlier, but how's your hand?"

"It's fine," she said, a bit too quickly from Jaren's perspective. He leaned over and gave the back of her right hand a firm prod. She drew her breath in a sharp hiss and pulled back her hand, flushing slightly. Kurou chuckled, looking away and struggling to hold back a smile as Touka glared at him.

"Sorry, I think Karura's rubbing off on me a little," Jaren said. "In all seriousness, you should get that looked at if you felt that through your handguard. It's your sword-hand after all."

"Well, that might be a little difficult with the Evinkuruga pride and all," declared a lazy voice that could only belong to Karura. She strolled towards them in no particular hurry, a jug of sake dangling from a cord wrapped around one of her wrists gently bouncing against her leg as she walked. Touka made no comment in response, although Jaren noticed a hint of a frown in her expression.

"She sure knows how to pick a good time to show up," Treyar murmured to Jaren. "I believe I'll make myself scarce. The reports, their bewitching song beckons to me." His tone was sarcastic, but he looked at Jaren meaningfully. Jaren nodded to let him know he understood what had to be done, and Treyar responded by means of a quick wink before turning to the others.

"I would love to stay and talk, but I am afraid I absolutely must get going," Treyar said apologetically to Kurou and Touka. "The Free Company is famous for a lot of things in the popular imagination, but the problem for me at least is that it takes a lot of bureaucratic wrangling to get them done."

"I feel you on that one," Kurou said as he extended a hand to Treyar, who promptly clasped it with his own. "Running things from on high is never as easy as it sounds."

"Indeed. The fact that I'm running a smaller operation than you is kind of foreboding when I think about it," Treyar said. "Makes me wonder if I should still be going for promotions at this point."

"They have a habit of finding you, although I don't know how the Anterei do it," Kurou said. Treyar smiled. "Thank you for sparring with Jaren," he said gently to Touka. "I know you did it to honor the bonds our people share, but I also appreciate it personally. It might not be apparent now, but this duel has done a lot for us." Touka looked up to meet Treyar's gaze and bowed politely, but stayed silent.

"Until later, then," Treyar said to Touka. Wasting no time, he strode over to Karura, stopping to talk to her as well. "Good afternoon, Karura. I wish that I could stay longer and enjoy your company, but I must be going. Unfortunately, the Free Company needs a good deal of paperwork to keep it running with some semblance of order."

"Don't stay on account of me, Captain," Karura said sweetly. "I hope that your work goes easily then, and that you have a pleasant rest of the afternoon."

"I appreciate the sentiment, thank you," Treyar said with a half-bow. "I'm sure you have something to talk to Jaren about, so I'll leave you two be." Karura returned the formality with her typical grace and easy half-smile.

"Ah, nice to see you made it down here," Kurou said, amused. "Enjoy the duel?"

"Very much. Nothing like a good fight to help pass a dull afternoon. Well, besides some drink, of course," Karura said, raising the jug by its cord.

"I don't mean to be rude, but we need to talk," Jaren said urgently.

"Oh? And whatever would we need to talk about?" Karura asked in an innocent voice.

"About what I said yesterday, I realize I might have gone too far," Jaren said, looking at her.

"Yesterday? I don't seem to recall. Could you perhaps refresh my memory?" Karura asked the question coyly, and it was plain to see that she was enjoying Jaren's unease.

"My comments on your former country's mistakes were ill-advised, and I'd like to humbly request that you to overlook them."

"Well said," Karura said. "I'm happy that you're trying to be considerate of my feelings, but there's nothing for me to overlook."

"Oh, is that so?" Jaren blinked, showing a hint of surprise at the turn of events. "All the same, I'd still like to make it up to you somehow."

"Why don't you pay me a visit later tonight, say an hour after dinner?"

"If it's not too much of a bother, that would be fine," Jaren said. "I'll bring something to drink."

"Wonderful," Karura said with a grin. Walking past Jaren and the others, she stopped and paused to think for a second before turning back and approaching Jaren. She leaned over to drape herself loosely over Jaren's back and shoulders, the jug bumping against his side. "I think this would classify as 'rubbing off on you a little,' or something of the sort," she said softly in his ear. Although she couldn't see Jaren's expression, she could tell he was wincing at her words. Touka was noticeably silent upon seeing this, and Karura seemed to take it as a cue to press farther.

"Don't be late now, a lady can only be selfless to a point, you know," she said as she untangled herself. "I'll leave you to your dueling partner; a delicate Evinkuruga flower should be handled carefully by skilled hands." Karura's phrasing and tone of voice were needlessly flowery, enough that Jaren drooped his head and let out an audible sigh as Touka's eyes flashed and her winged ears stuck out rigidly.

"I know I lost, you don't have to make me look even more foolish!" Karura's response was to pat a very frustrated Touka on the arm, still grinning as she turned and left. Jaren shook his head as he watched her leave. Touka let out a frustrated sound before stomping off in the opposite direction.

"Touka, hold on a moment," Jaren called after her, but she showed no signs of stopping or even turning back to look at him. He stared at Touka's figure as she walked further and further away before looking up to the sky with an exasperated look.

"See if this makes any sense to you," Jaren said to Kurou as he closed his eyes and rubbed his right temple. "Yesterday, I managed to anger Karura to the point where I worried she might still be angry at me today despite getting along rather well earlier in the day. At the same time, Touka and I were getting along just fine. Now, Karura is the agreeable one and Touka's taken over the opposite role."

"The way I see things, it makes perfect sense to me. Then again, I've known them a lot longer than you have, so that's something to keep in mind. Really, it's Karura in action. She's a real mystery, that one," Kurou mused. "Come on, let's head back to the castle, we'll talk some more on the way."

"She's really good at keeping me completely, utterly confused about her now that you mention it," Jaren said glumly. Kurou slapped his back with a chuckle. "Don't be so depressed, I think she likes you," the large man said jocularly. "You're making good progress too, she's only known you for two days; should have seen how fast she blew me off. She invited you to her room, no less."

"Ancestors guide and protect me," Jaren said grimly. "What is it about women and men who are already spoken for anyways?"

"Hey, now that's the first I heard of that," Kurou said, his steps halting briefly due to his surprise. "You finally got someone waiting for you?" He quickened his pace for a few moments to catch back up to Jaren.

"I don't know about that," Jaren said. "Kind of a mutual wait would be the best way to describe it."

"She's in the military too? You never stop being interesting, you know that?"

"All too well, I think," Jaren said with a half-hearted laugh. "Wasn't an easy courtship, if you can even call it that."

"Hey now, run it by me before you start saying that," Kurou said with an arched brow. "I've been a leader of soldiers for as long as I can remember, so I've heard my share of stories about chasing after women. Try and shock me."

"The first time we met we were at each other's throats..." Jaren began, only to be cut off by a snort from Kurou. "Routine," Kurou interjected. "Very."

"Let me finish, it gets better," Jaren said with a raised hand. "We were at each other's throats because she had slashed up my right arm really well as I disarmed her, and I was trying to get her off of me by choking her into unconsciousness. She was trying to return the favor," he deadpanned.

"Okay, that's one I haven't heard before," Kurou said as he scratched his head. "What caused all of that?"

"I was running a screening operation with my team and she was a mercenary being paid for by the other side," Jaren explained. "First Division had killed her employer, so there was no reason for her to stick around, and she happened to run into my area."

"And then?" Kurou briefly turned away from Jaren to wave off a group of soldiers who were standing rigidly at attention upon seeing their General nearing.

"I told her to put down her weapon and surrender, and she told me where she'd put her weapon," Jaren said, smirking. "I had my orders, she had her instinct for self-preservation, we fought. The deadlock only broke after I managed to find the blade I had dropped when she'd wounded me earlier, and then stab her in a nerve center in one of her legs. She blacked out from the pain, although it took a few seconds. Seemed more like an eternity to me. I honestly have no idea how she ever came to like me after that one." Kurou burst out laughing, drawing more than a few amazed stares from passerby as they walked. Jaren smirked but said nothing as they drew nearer to the castle, seeing Lynia and Kyr waiting in front of the door they had come into the courtyard through.

"That went well, I think," Jaren stated as he and a still laughing Kurou stopped in front of the other two.

"Well fought, sir," Kyr said enthusiastically. "Makes me want to get our Capital Guard trainees into sparring, although I know it's too early for that."

"In time, Kyr," Lynia said. "How's your arm, Jaren?"

"Fine, I think," Jaren said as he rolled his right shoulder and flexed his arm. Lynia reached over to feel his upper arm, grasping the muscle. "You're right, I can't feel any kind of tightness or anything to worry about," Lynia remarked. She looked at the large man who was partly doubled over curiously. "What'd you tell the General, anyways?"

"Just how he met the girl he's longing for now," Kurou said between gasps for air. "Something about them stabbing and choking each other."

"Oh, that," Lynia said, the second word enunciated very distinctly. "Jaren's always liked the strange ones. Not that I can tell you why." Jaren frowned at her, his brow creasing as he did. "What? You can't honestly tell me that the women you tend to get involved with are at least somewhat out of the ordinary."

"Are you counting yourself in that group?" Kyr asked the question with a smile, but it quickly left his face as Lynia shot an especially menacing look his way. "Joking, of course," he stammered.

"Of course," Lynia said with a leering grin. "Right, Jaren?"

"So much I want to say, and yet so many horrible things that will happen if I do," Jaren said half-seriously.

"Hmm? Whatever could you mean?" Lynia's eyebrows twitched as she asked the question with a forced smile.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Jaren said with a practiced ease. Lynia folded her arms across her chest and continued to glare at Kyr, who despite his best attempts to ignore her, stiffened in response to the attention. Jaren rolled his eyes at the silent conflict being fought next to him before turning to Kurou. "I need to go the market and pick up some gifts for Karura, so I'll have to take my leave, General."

"Yeah, well, I should probably be getting back to work anyway," Kurou said with a tired sigh. "I have to figure out what happened with the latest shipment of supplies for the cavalry. You'd think it'd be pretty hard to lose track of fifty replacement saddles, but that's what my quartermasters are telling me happened. Lucky you, getting to play the envoy."

"Don't think I'm lucky just yet, I still have to get through the rest of the night," Jaren said with a worried look on his face.

"You've got a point there," Kurou said with chuckle. "Good luck, then."

"Thanks General," Jaren said, shaking hands with the large man. "Kyr, why don't you go with me to the market before Lynia's eyes bore a hole straight through you."

"Aye, sir, thank you," Kyr said hurriedly, swiftly moving over to Jaren as he began walking towards the castle's main gate. Kurou and Lynia watched the two go.

"Quite a handful, those two are," Kurou said. He looked over to see that Lynia was still directing a hard look at Kyr's back. As if in response, she unfolded her arms from across her chest and breathed a sigh.

"You're right, General, but they're my team members," Lynia murmured. "I wouldn't trade them for anything in this world or the next."


	7. Chapter 7: Evening Calm

Author's Note

Been a while, I know. I entered graduate school in August, so this update took even longer than normal. Graduate school is really sucking the life out of me so far. Still, writing this in the brief periods where I don't feel like my brain is completely fried has been relaxing, so I hope you enjoy this. Thanks for reading, and an early "Happy New Year" to you all.

Chapter Seven: Evening Calm

Seeking the strength to defend,

Their freedom ceded for greater things,

Such was the sacrifice made,

That they left parts of themselves behind.

-The Founding of Anterei, Book Four, Verse Twenty-Seven

"Well now, don't you look different?"

The question from Kurou caused the rest of those seated at the table to look up at the person it was directed towards. Jaren was standing in the doorway wearing a bemused expression as he met the gazes of everyone. Replacing the uniforms they had grown accustomed to seeing him was a set of loose garments that would more likely be seen on a well-to-do man who wanted to make a favorable impression on his hosts. Instead of the usual set of coat, belt, pants, and boots, Jaren was wearing a loose mid-length kimono over pants and shoes similar to Touka's. The kimono was a grey color with a lighter-colored trim on the edges and held closed with a dark blue sash. His loose pants followed a similar grey with lighter contrast motif, and brushed against the well-made but otherwise unremarkable shoes he was wearing. The change in clothes was very noticeable as it was in fact the first time that anyone in the room not from the Free Company had seen Jaren in something besides a uniform since his arrival. The surprised looks from everyone present helped to confirm this.

"How does this look?" Jaren spread his arms slightly and looked down at his new clothing. "I have to admit, it's been some time since I was out of uniform, and even longer since I wore anything quite so refined."

"You look well-dressed, sir," Kyr said, following Jaren into the room. "I picked up enough from having a seamstress as a mother to know something about clothes."

"I don't think I can argue with that, then," Jaren said in response to Kyr's reassurance. "May I ask for opinions from the ladies present?" Lynia leaned back slightly from her seat at the low table and gestured towards Jaren with a silent nod. She had been speaking with Touka, who looked up to Jaren a bit shamefacedly before her eyes darted back down to the table in front of her. Lynia shrugged and let out a sigh, patting Touka gently on the shoulder as she did.

"Mmm, I think you look good!" Kamyu made her cheerful presence known, letting Jaren know her thoughts without the slightest ounce of hesitation or insincerity. Jaren grinned inwardly.

"You look very nice," Eruruu said with a friendly smile. "Is there a special occasion?"

"Far as I know, he made Karura angry yesterday and he's trying to make up for it," Kurou said, smirking. Eruruu held a hand up to her mouth and laughed nervously, looking at Jaren. Jaren strained to put on a smile, although the tightening of his mouth betrayed his best efforts as he sat at the table across from them.

"Is Jaren a mean person?" Aruruu had spoken up, and looked to the older women next to her. Jaren's ears twitched upon hearing her question, and he glanced over, concerned.

"Aruruu!" Her older sister turned to her sternly. "Jaren's a guest, you should be more polite!" Aruruu shrunk back towards Kamyu's seat. Kamyu grasped Aruruu's hand in her own. "No Aruruu, Jaren's a good person, it's just that there's something inside of him that makes things a little harder than for the rest of us."

"Something inside of him?" The dark-haired girl looked at Kamyu, not understanding.

"Yeah, like how I used to be," Kamyu said, looking at her. Aruruu let out a small noise in surprise, but nodded in understanding. Eruruu frowned worriedly. "I'm sorry she made you bring that up, Kamyu."

"No, it's not a problem," Kamyu said, shaking her head as she spoke. "I just felt like I should say something about it since I know what it's like." She looked to Jaren, a sympathetic look on her gentle features.

"Such was the sacrifice made," he said softly. Jaren smiled back, although his expression seemed tinged with a definite sadness to Eruruu. She looked up to glance around the table, finding herself locking eyes with Touka whose face revealed a similar set of feelings.

"Jaren." This time it had been Lynia. She was staring hard at Jaren, her facial expression and posture in a place between concern and genuine fear. Kyr looked at Jaren intently as well. Kamyu quickly leaned over the table to place a hand on Jaren's arm. Everyone else at the table watched the scene unfolding before them, unsure of what exactly was occurring.

"I'm alright, I'm alright," Jaren said, shaking his head. "Really." His two teammates relaxed, although they continued to keep their eyes fixed on him. Kamyu gazed into his eyes, searching for any signs. Finally, Jaren looked up to meet Kamyu's eyes, and clutched her hand in his gently.

"Thank you, Kamyu," Jaren said. "I apologize for you needing to say so much on my behalf. We Straserts are hopeless that way."

"You know the Onkami Yamukai are always willing to help, even if you don't ask for it," Kamyu said, her face unusually serious. "There's too much that's been shared between your bloodline and ours for it to be any other way." With a final look into his eyes, she let go of his hand.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Treyar remarked as he entered the room. Jaren, Lynia, and Kyr quickly jumped up, only for Treyar to motion for them to sit again. "Did something happen?" Kurou and the others shrugged or otherwise avoided eye contact.

"Those kinds of reactions are never good," Treyar mused. "If it's something I have no business knowing, I won't pry any further."

"Jaren and Kamyu were having a brief discussion on ancestor spirits," Lynia said sharply before anyone else could say anything. "Kamyu was gracious enough to share her knowledge on the subject."

"I see. Anything I should worry about?"

"No, Captain," Lynia said, her voice firm. Treyar's eyes flicked over to the other team members, Kyr shaking his head briefly, and then to Jaren who did the same.

"If that's the case then, I will take your word for it," Treyar said, satisfied. "None of you has ever given me reason to doubt you." He sat down across from Kurou. "I hope our selection process hasn't caused any problems with your men."

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," Kurou said. "If anything, I'm glad you're all here, I feel like the Free Company just being here has gotten my forces more motivated to train hard."

"Hmm, yes, routine garrison duty can be a drain on morale," Treyar said thoughtfully. "In any case, I'm glad to hear our presence here is helpful. Maybe it's too early to bring this up, but how do you feel about continuing to run selection within your own forces some day?"

"You mean using our own men?" Kurou looked surprised.

"That's right," Treyar said. "If the current cohort in training experiences actual combat with us, I think it's a very real possibility that they could form their own training cadre in the future. I would need to have some advisory staff sent over to supervise its formation, but it would lead to Tusukuru having its own scouts within four years I think."

"Really? My gut says it's a great idea, but I'll have to run that by the Regent first," Kurou said. "I say we definitely have the people, but I don't know about the resources."

"Ah, you're right, I'm getting ahead of myself," Treyar said with a chuckle. "At the very least, I think I could persuade the capital to at least rotate a few units in from time to time, break up that routine a little. What do you say to a company or two of disembarked Marines?"

"Eh?!" Kurou was surprised again, but this time with the addition of a worried look on his face. "Is that really okay, for them to be here for training?"

"It's fine, it's fine," Treyar said laughing. "Their Commandant likes to get them out of familiar waters from time to time, or should I say lands in this case?"

"That sounds good, but I'm worried whether or not they're going to wear out my men training. We hear the stories out here too, you know." Kurou frowned, recalling something unpleasant.

"We can get them orders to hold off on some of the more, shall we say, extreme measures then. They make for excellent training staff though, I guarantee after a month or so of a Marine-run garrison, your soldiers will all be in top form!" Treyar was grinning widely at this point. "Why don't you share some of your experiences, you three?"

"Ummm, experiences, you say," Jaren said, trailing off as he looked to the other two. Lynia had folded her arms over her chest and looked up to the ceiling as if trying to conjure something fit to share with Kurou. Kyr smirked with a decidedly fiendish glint in his eye, which Jaren caught sight of. "Kyr, please tell me you remember something appropriate to share, given our present company," Jaren said, emphatically jerking his head towards the Kamyu, the two sisters, and Touka.

"Ahem, well, uh... how do I put this? They're really not so bad as their reputation makes them out to be, General. They're in the habit of giving you a hard time if you're not one of them, but it's something of a friendly tradition they have." He stopped for a moment to think, and suddenly his smirk grew even wider. "If you can keep up or beat them in anything, they'll treat you as one of their own."

"Really? I never heard that before," Kurou mused. "What did you do to change their minds?" Treyar looked to Kyr with raised eyebrows as well, clearly interested by a story he had yet to hear.

"Back when we were in Second Division, we were on a training tour with them. We had been at sea for a month, and when we got into port we went..." Kyr came to a stop, noticing Jaren drawing a flattened hand across his throat energetically and Lynia attempting to fix him to the wall with a piercing glare. Treyar cleared his throat. "Perhaps another time then, Kyr."

"Very well, sir," Kyr said sharply, trying not to meet Lynia's eyes. Luckily for him, a distraction came in through the door in four-legged, striped form. The four Free Company members in the room stared as Mukuru casually plodded in and sat by Aruruu. Lynia drew back slightly, as her seat next to Touka was also directly next to Aruruu's and now her large companion.

"Don't worry about this guy," Kamyu said, having noticed Lynia's discomfort. The winged girl wrapped her arms around Mukuru's large frame energetically and rubbed her face against the striped tiger's fur. "See?" As she did, there was a faint squeak. Kamyu let go suddenly and looked over at Mukuru's back. She scooped up what looked to be a white and blue ball of fur.

"Sorry, Gachatara, I didn't notice you," she said to the ball. It turned out to be a small animal, the group of soldiers saw as it uncurled itself sleepily. The twin-tailed animal squeaked again as it scratched itself with a hind leg.

"Oh, now there's something I haven't seen in a long time," Kyr said with a nostalgic tone. "I caught a Miykuum a few years back when I was mountain-climbing in Reshon Province. That was real lucky, that was. Got a good sum from the merchant I sold it to, sent it back home to my folks. Looked kind of like this one now that I think about it." Reaching over to pet the animal, he quickly pulled his hand so he could cover both his ears as it let out a piercing noise that echoed around the room, making it all the more worse.

"You had to go and bother the thing, didn't you," Lynia shouted over the noise. Touka had nothing to add except a pained groan, as she was sitting next to Aruruu and Kamyu and hence very close to the source of the irritating sound. Everyone else was in a similar state of distress their hands over their ears, including Mukuru, who let out a very unhappy growl as he flattened his ears against his head and buried it in his paws.

"Why do I have the feeling that is the same Mikyuum you caught," Jaren added while cringing with his eyes closed.

"Gachatara!" The sound came to a sudden halt, and everyone looked up to see what had happened. Aruruu was staring at the Mikyuum unhappily, with her finger in his stomach from where she had prodded him. It squeaked again, and curled up in an almost sulky manner as it stared cautiously at Kyr from across the table.

"Well, that was interesting. Thank you for that one, Kyr," Treyar remarked dryly, rubbing at his ears. "I'm surprised a Mikyuum made it's way out here, how did you get your hands on it?"

"From a merchant who does a lot of business around here, name's Chikinaro," Kurou said, putting a finger in an ear and wiggling it around slightly.

"Eh, is that so? That would explain it then, Chikinaro's always managed to get around," Treyar said offhandedly.

"You know him?"

"Free Company's done business with him before," Treyar said with a wink. "A lot of business, it'd be fair to say. He's good at getting what we need at short notice."

"That he is," Kurou said. "Still, it really amazes me just how far your peoples' influence reaches."

"A coincidence of our history, that is. Or something we've gotten used to doing, if you like. You don't exactly build a nation, lose it, and then start building it back up again for nothing, I'd hope." Treyar laughed as he finished.

"I hope so as well, for my brother's sake if nothing else," Karura's voice announced. She was casually leaning against the hallway entrance, a perfectly natural action for her it seemed. Her eyes looked to have an especially happy glint to them, and the reason why was made clear as she glided over to where Jaren was sitting. Kyr subtly moved off to the side to give her room, a cue which she took with a smile directed his way before she placed herself next to Jaren's side. Lynia frowned, seeing the potential for further trouble in the near future.

"Don't you look the example of a well-dressed guest," Karura said happily. "Your clothes are of the Reshon style, if I'm not mistaken?"

"You are not," Jaren said. "You have a real eye for these things."

"Oh, you spend enough time in busy cities and you learn a few things," she said. Stealing a glance at Touka, she suddenly leaned in very close to Jaren.

"I think she likes how this looks on you, even if she hasn't said it yet, the naïve girl," Karura whispered just loud enough for those across the table to hear. Kyr could be heard stifling a chuckle by trying to disguise it as a cough, and from the other end of the table Jaren could see Treyar shake his head while suppressing a smile.

"Karura," Touka blurted out, thoroughly exasperated. Her cheeks colored slightly as all eyes centered on her and she realized that her voice had been a bit on the loud side. Lynia gently nudged her in the side with an elbow. Touka started slightly from the contact, and cleared her throat before she spoke again, this time more quietly. "You've been trying his patience ever since we met, can't you give it a rest just for one evening?"

"Hmm, well, when you put it like that I have no choice," Karura said lazily. "As you wish."

Touka blinked, at a loss for words. "Uh... well then... good, good," she said hesitantly. She looked to Lynia, who in turn looked at Karura quietly sitting next to Jaren acting as if she had just met him. Thinking to herself silently, she tilted her head as she regarded the two, feeling the distinct impression she was forgetting something. She looked to Jaren, seeing nothing unusual aside from his clothes. Her thoughts halted slightly; why was he dressed up anyways? Karura's content features caught her eye. A corner of Lynia's mouth twitched as she remembered what Jaren had said earlier that afternoon.

"Damn it, Jaren," Lynia muttered under her breath. She felt a surge of annoyance at his actions, even though she knew he hadn't tried to get himself into this particular woman-related situation. For as long as she had known Jaren, the problem was that they tended to find him. In the meantime, she had to distract Touka long enough that she didn't go poking around and find Jaren being too close to Karura in order to prevent any further problems.

"Touka, I know you just fought a duel earlier, but do you think you could spar with me, say an hour after dinner? I'd really appreciate being able to practice against someone of your fighting style."

"Oh, of course," Touka said earnestly. "To be honest, seeing you fight in the woods the other day was exciting, the way you used your entire weapon and your gauntlets."

"We're interesting like that," Lynia said with a grin. "There's never such a thing as an ordinary Free Company soldier."

"Truer words never spoken," Jaren added, overhearing their conversation. His face took on an apologetic expression as he looked over to Touka. "How's the hand? Not too painful I hope?"

"It, it's fine, really," Touka said. She pulled back her right handguard slightly to show a bandage. "Eruruu put a salve on it for me, there's nothing to worry about, really."

"I see," Jaren said. "Well, I'm glad that it won't be a problem. I spoke with Kyr on the way back, and he and the Captain were thinking that it'd be good to take the candidates out for a field exercise in the forest. You're invited, of course, as are you Karura."

"I accept," Karura said politely. "If we're to fight together, it'd only be proper to spend more time traveling together as well." Touka stared at Karura incredulously, visibly bothered by her unusual seriousness in sticking to the matter at hand without adding any extra comments or flirting with Jaren. Lynia shifted her weight nervously, clearly hoping Touka didn't reach the same conclusion that Lynia herself had come to earlier.

"Actually, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself," Jaren interjected. "The exercise will be for three days and two nights. We'll leave tomorrow in the morning at first light, and spend the next two days hiking and sleeping outdoors before heading back to the castle. We'll likely be back a little before noon on the third day."

"It can't be helped," Karura said with a shrug. "I'll still accompany your group."

"Sorry for not saying that sooner," Jaren said. "And you, Touka?"

"Most surely! It would dishonor the Evinkuruga not to accompany Anterei soldiers when offered to!" Touka was now at a rigid position of attention, sitting up straight with her legs tucked neatly beneath her.

"Please, no need to be so formal," Jaren said. "I'm just glad both of you are willing to come along considering you both just returned the other day after traveling for so long, and now I'm dragging you along on an outdoor excursion."

"I must confess that I'll miss the comfort of my bed, but I'll manage," Karura said. Jaren winced and waited for the teasing follow-up to her statement, but it never arrived. Flicking his eyes over to Touka, he could see the same thwarted expectation on her face as well and the frown that quickly followed. He really needed to keep his visit to Karura's room later in the evening unmentioned and unnoticed for the time being, he thought.

Catching a meaningful look from Lynia, he glanced over to see her to slide a hand along the table in Touka's direction and make a barely noticeable nod. Jaren responded by way of a smile, and received a hint of a frown that signaled to him Lynia didn't consider this a freely-given favor . Winking at her, Jaren saw Lynia roll her eyes before breaking eye contact and casually brushing at the part of her coat that was touching the ground.

That idiot owes me for this one, Lynia thought to herself grimly. She pushed the thought from her mind, lest it show on her face and perhaps make Touka think of things other than what Lynia was trying to steer her towards.

The door slid open again, this time with Benawi stepping through. Treyar and the rest of the Free Company soldiers rose, sitting down just as quickly as Benawi gestured for them to relax.

"Please, no need for unnecessary formalities," Benawi said, sitting down. "We'll spend all day on them if we keep this up."

"Sorry, a force of habit," Treyar said. "We visit more than a few countries and their ruling officials, after all. Our general rule is that it is best to be more polite than necessary on such occasions."

"I see," Benawi replied. "Well, in any case, please do not feel that you need to worry about that here. You are our long-term guests, so feel at home as long as you stay."

"Thank you, we will keep that in mind." The reply from Treyar marked the end of the formal conversation around the table, as the food arrived shortly after. Jaren spent most of his time talking to Kurou about the readiness of the Tusukuru forces since the last time he had personally been in the area. Benawi and Treyar interrupted from time to time to ask their own questions or clarify matters. Touka and Karura were kept busy by Kamyu, who had asked them to share their experiences traveling over the past two years. Eruruu and Aruruu listened intently as Karura related one incident or another that she and Touka had found themselves in during their travels.

Eventually, Karura got to some stories that were embarrassing at Touka's expense. They could tell Evinkuruga woman was irritated despite her best efforts to not make it seem quite so obvious. Lynia silently breathed a sigh of relief, her job made easier by this turn of events. As Karura was in the process of recounting a choice bit of a blunder Touka had found herself in, Lynia scanned Karura's face for any clue as to her thoughts. Karura didn't appear to notice at first, although Lynia thought for a moment a wink directed at Touka was meant for her as well. She made a mental note to herself to have a talk with Karura later to see if her suspicions were right.

As everyone around the table finished up their food, she made sure to capture Touka's attention, trying to keep her focus off of Jaren. The ploy worked, as Lynia's questions on how Touka wanted to prepare for sparring kept her busy enough for Karura to slip out of the dining room and head towards her own room, followed by Jaren going the opposite direction to his own a few moments after. The only two who seemed to notice or at least give a sign that they had were Mukuru, who looked at the two curiously before settling his face on the ground in between two massive paws, and Treyar who ventured a brief wave to Jaren before turning the hand he used into a fist and casually resting his chin as he propped his elbow against the table. Lynia allowed herself an inkling of a smile as she flicked her eyes back to Touka's enthusiastic recommendation for warming up after a brief rest to let their stomachs settle after the meal.

Even if there was no sense in worrying about it, she hoped that Jaren wouldn't land himself in too much trouble. Given past events though, perhaps it was too much to ask.

----

Jaren stopped at the entrance to Karura's room, setting down the bundle containing his gift. He looked down at his clothes, checking to make sure nothing was out of place. Reasonably sure everything was where it was supposed to be, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. After waiting a few moments and hearing no response, he knocked again. Still hearing nothing, Jaren folded his arms across his chest and frowned. Mulling over what to do, he finally picked up the bundle again, and knocked on the door once more but this time sliding it open as he did.

"Sorry to bother you, but I'm coming in," Jaren called out as he slid the door open, looking down at the floor as he turned to slide the door shut behind him. Jaren's motivation for behaving as such was to try and head off any potentially embarrassing situations that might arise if Karura still happened to be dressing. His intuition told him that such a thing was entirely likely as well as being entirely staged by Karura, given her whimsical nature up to this point. Not hearing any startled rustling or a gasp of surprise, he turned around. The first thing he saw was a grinning Karura standing only a few paces away from him.

"My, so polite," she said with a soft laugh, raising a hand to cover her mouth. Looking over her, Jaren found himself at a loss for words. While he was well aware of Karura's beauty, he was not fully prepared to see her dressed as she now stood before him. Jaren was surprised to see her clothed in an eastern style, something he saw more frequently near home or in more cosmopolitan cities such as the Noseshechikan capital. Like most eastern style dresses, Karura's was slimly cut, the design emphasizing her figure. The fabric was light brown in color, with a finely-printed pattern of amber wheat stalks running across the torso, while the edges of the short collar of the dress and where the top of the dress fastened across from the right shoulder to the left side were embroidered with a white thread. The dress itself was sleeveless, cut just above the shoulders and the hem just above the ankles, although with slits along the side ending just above the knee, both contrasting with the cream-colored stockings on her legs and a long-sleeved, half-coat she wore in the same color. Her lion's tail brushed loosely against her left leg, waving lazily as she shifted her weight from one leg to another. Karura had also braided her long hair more loosely, and draped it over her left shoulder to dangle against her side. Overall, Jaren found her stunning.

"When I heard from your Captain that you were all from the east, I thought to dress in a manner you were more used to seeing," Karura said, still smiling as she noticed the effect it had on Jaren. "Is it to your liking?"

"How... how could it not be," Jaren stammered. "You didn't have to spend so much effort." Karura held up a hand and shook her head at the statement. "It would be rude of me to do anything less. Besides, I have to admit I like seeing how you look at me while I'm wearing this." Jaren flushed and coughed nervously, embarrassed at having been staring at Karura enough to be noticed.

"I... I have something for you," Jaren said quickly, holding the bundle out towards Karura with both hands. "You can open it, if you like."

"Thank you, I think I will," Karura said, accepting the present. "Let's go to the balcony then." She padded through her room quietly before reaching the balcony, the light from the room lamps extending just beyond the threshold and fading away before the light of the full moon in the sky. Jaren followed her, grateful for the momentary reprieve it gave him to try and compose himself. Karura carefully sat on a woven mat she had laid out earlier, and waited until Jaren had done the same on another one next to hers before she opened the bundle. Unwrapping the cloth revealed a lacquered wooden box. She lifted the lid, and found a large jug of liquor inside along with a set of dark blue serving flasks and flat, shallow drinking cups.

"They're lovely Jaren, thank you," Karura said happily. "Will I like the contents of the jug as much as the box, I wonder?"

"I venture that you will," Jaren said confidently. "The merchant I bought it from was rather energetic in letting me know that it would match your tastes." Jaren reached over for the container, and pulled the stopper out of the mouth of the jug with a pop. Karura held one of the flasks as Jaren carefully transferred some of the liquid between the two. They repeated the process with another two flasks before Jaren set the jug down and replaced the stopper.

"Please, try some of it," Jaren said, motioning for Karura to pick up one of the drinking cups. She grasped one and held it out as Jaren filled it from one of the flasks, the flask clinking against the rim of the cup as he did. He raised the flask back up after he finished, and earnestly watched Karura as she raised the cup to her mouth. She closed her eyes, her breath just audible as she inhaled the scent of the liquor before draining the cup. Karura opened her eyes in genuine surprise as she exhaled. "It's quite good!"

"I'm glad to hear that," Jaren said with a measure of satisfaction in his voice. "Does the merchant at the corner stall where I bought this from know you? He seemed to already know who it was I was getting this for, and I don't recall telling him anything."

"The corner stall?" Karura set her cup down and looked up into the sky reflectively. "Was it owned by an older man? Tall, thin, graying hair?"

"Yes, that's the one," Jaren said. "I'm guessing you're a familiar sight around there?"

"You could say that," Karura said with a playful grin. "I gave him a lot of business in the past, so I think he's been waiting for me to show up again. The man's old, but his mind is still young."

"That explains it then. He must have seen us together when we were going to the castle and passed through." Jaren filled Karura's cup again, which she picked up and sipped from. The two sat silently for a time, the nighttime sounds of the forest around them and the distant market drifting in occasionally on a light breeze. Karura looked over to Jaren, seeing his face take on a distant look as he stared out past the balcony's low railing and into the horizon. Although she felt the urge to ask him what he was thinking about, she stifled it and instead set her cup down to fill a cup for Jaren. As she finished and reached to hand it to Jaren he stirred slightly in his seat, noticing her actions.

"Sorry I ignored you for a moment there," Jaren said. "Something about today has got me in a strange mood." He took the cup from her hands and drank it in one gulp. "Phew. Been a while since I've had anything as nice as this."

"Oh? Tell me about it, why don't you." Karura reached over with the flask to fill Jaren's cup again. "Ah, thank you," Jaren said as he raised his cup to let Karura fill it more easily. He took a brief sip before setting it down, resting his elbows against his upper legs to settle in a more comfortable position.

"Where do I start? Lynia mentioned the militia training we all went through years ago, do you remember that?"

"Yes, the one you all did very well in," Karura replied.

"The same. The team that was at the finish before us became close friends with ours. Lynia and Kyr got along with them as well as I did. They didn't stand out like us at first, but over the years when we were all in Second Division, they became some of the best around." Jaren paused for a long while, staring off into the distance again. Karura sat patiently, waiting for him to begin again. Jaren took another sip from his cup, this time emptying it and Karura refilled it as he held it out. He carefully placed the cup on the wooden floor of the balcony before continuing.

"Their team was two women and one man; Tersea Vian, Len Selem, and Altin Cerse. All of us did well enough in militia training to earn advanced standing, and during the two year break in between militia and our eligibility for Second Division enlistment, the six of us were always in close contact. We all studied at the state academy for those two years, and it was a wonderful time."

Jaren placed his hands behind him, propping himself up with his palms as he leaned back with a smile. "We all used to joke that Altin was my long lost, more serious brother. We were definitely close, and always finding ourselves in some predicament together, a lot of things that two boys on the verge of becoming men would get themselves into. Altin was a lot quieter than I ever was, but he had a way of really bonding with the people he did open up with." Jaren took a sip from his cup. "Lynia, especially, I should add."

"Len was a sweet girl, the one who seemed completely out of place in our group of military-minded rabble. She was a small one, but that never stopped her. Most people thought it was the funniest thing to see her carrying around a spear so much taller than she was, but once they saw her wield the thing they didn't laugh anymore. I guess we all treated her like a little sister of sorts, or at least that's how I saw it. I'm probably biased though, having an older sister myself and wanting to act like the older sibling for once."

"What about Lynia and Kyr? They're only children as well, aren't they?"

"Right. Personally, I think they saw Len as the little sister they never had. Kyr's a very easygoing person, but that changed if anyone started hassling Len. She was hanging around Lynia as often as she could, so that was rare, but it happened every now and then. Lynia was definitely an older sister figure, the one who could make strong-willed Len listen to her most easily." Another pause in Jaren's story was punctuated by another sip.

"And Tersea? What was she to all of you?" Karura had asked the question innocently enough in an attempt to keep the conversation going, but she felt a sense of regret for asking it when she watched how Jaren's face changed. A very obvious sadness had replaced the nostalgic gleam in his eyes, and the noticeable droop in his posture carried the feeling further.

"Tersea was... she was many things," Jaren said hesitantly. Karura could tell that was struggling to express himself, which was unlike him. "A great soldier, leader, and a friend to all of us. She meant the world to me, and I'm sure Lynia and Kyr would tell you the same." He ran his free hand through his hair absentmindedly, looking like he was considering what to say next.

"I take it she passed away some time ago?" Karura asked the question delicately, a nod from Jaren confirming what she had guessed was the case, based on Jaren's shift in behavior earlier. The two of them sat quietly for a while, neither of them saying anything.

"There's always someone out of all the people you know who really has more of an influence over things than you really understand until they're not there anymore," Jaren mused, finally breaking the silence. Karura thought to herself of Hakuoro, who fit that description perfectly, but said nothing in response. Jaren looked into the distance again before continuing.

"After Tersea was gone, her team fell apart. Len moved to a Sergeant-Instructor post in the capital at the state academy, swore off of combat operations. Altin transferred to the Marines, so he's off fighting pirates, slavers, and bandits who knows where. I wish I knew how they were doing, it's been too long since I've seen either of them."

"And, well, the three of us here in Tusukuru just kept on going like we had always planned to, like how Tersea had wanted to. She had some grand plans, not just for herself, but for all of us really. I seriously think she could've made Marshal, but she always told us the only way she was getting anywhere close was with our help."

"Sorry," Jaren said with a look down at Karura. "All I'm doing is talking about myself and ruining your evening again." Karura shook her head. "No, it's fine, Jaren. I'm happy that you share these things with me."

"I'm relieved to hear that," Jaren replied. "Will you tell me something about your past?" Karura sat up, lifting herself off of Jaren, albeit with some hesitation. Turning to face him while still seated on the floor, her face showed an uncharacteristic amount of sadness, which Jaren noted with concern. "It's fine with me if you're not comfortable talking about it," he said, placing a hand on her arm. "I know I see things differently than most, being willing to talk about these sorts of things so easily."

"Why is that, anyways?" Karura looked at Jaren's face with curiosity.

"I've thought for a long time now that memories are often all we have of those most important to us, whether we know it or not," Jaren said looking out over the balcony. "Some of the people I've known the best out of any in my life, who I never really thought twice about being without turned out to be the ones who I ended up being separated from. Whether it's in terms of distance, or feelings, or life and death, I had the idea that maybe separation would be lessened if I kept my memories of the time we spent together alive."

"Isn't that just painful? Being able to recall things clearly but having those experiences just be locked within your memory?" Karura was still watching for the effect of her words on Jaren, and she felt a pang of regret as Jaren's face took on a saddened look and his ears lowered.

"It is, but it's what I have left and what I chose," Jaren said after a moment's pause. "It's why most people who take on the spirits don't choose the way I took. I would think the opposite is easier, going from having no memories, knowing no one at first and having those left come back into your life again. Most people who go through the process choose that method because it's less painful to forget those who are gone."

"But you didn't."

"No, I did not. I had lost much, but I valued those memories I had of the fallen enough to think that simply erasing them would be a disgrace to the people within them."

"You're going to have to explain this whole concept of spirits to me," Karura said. "I have to admit I know next to nothing besides the rumors."

"I don't know as much as others, but if I had to try and explain it simply, I would tell you it is something like heightened intuition," Jaren said. "As if you had done something new many times before. It's more than that, really. I don't think I can fully explain it."

Jaren broke eye contact with Karura momentarily, as he moved himself across the floor, still sitting. He picked up and moved all of the drinking cups and bottles closer to Karura and himself before returning to his seat. Jaren filled both of their cups, placing one in Karura's hands before taking his own. He looked down for a moment before looking into Karura's eyes again.

"To those who have gone before us," Jaren said, raising his cup towards Karura.

"To those who have gone before us," Karura said, repeating the toast before they both drank. Reaching for the flask again, Karura picked it up to find it noticeably light. Shaking it, she could feel there was only a small amount left, which made sense at the rate they had been drinking from it. She emptied the portion into her own cup, and grabbed an untouched flask to refill Jaren's before topping hers off.

"Already? I wonder if I should slow down a little," Jaren said.

"Oh? Does that mean you get drunk easily, then?" Karura asked the question in her usual playful tone, trying to steer their conversation back to a less somber mood. "Maybe," Jaren replied with a smirk.

"Hmmm, that's dangerous Jaren, underestimating what a woman might do to a man if he's too drunk," Karura teased.

"Ha, I'm not sure if that scares me too much or not enough," Jaren said with a bit of a flinch.

"Well, we'll see."


End file.
